Almost 30 million operations are performed in the United States every year. Peri-operative care -- including pre-operative preparation, intra-operative management and post-operative care – are critical functions within surgical facilities that require coordination among many multi-disciplinary providers within the surgical facility as well as externally. The timeliness and efficiency of the peri-operative care systems within facilities contribute to the patient outcomes and overall quality of surgical care delivered. Unfortunately numerous reports, including the Institute of Medicine’s To Err is Human have noted that significant numbers of patients undergoing surgery suffer complications and less than optimal patient outcomes.
To date, NQF has endorsed 28 hospital-level measures, 10 measures for ambulatory surgery centers and 12 measures for clinicians addressing peri-operative care. Additional measures are needed, particularly in the areas of timeliness, efficiency, care coordination, patient safety, transitions of care and outcomes of care. More information on the overall performance of peri-operative services would provide stakeholders with a robust picture of the quality of surgical services delivered in the US.
The quality of surgical care, including pre-operative, intra-operative and post-operative management reflects the efficiency and coordination of the multi-disciplinary providers within the surgical facility, as well as coordination with appropriate external providers. NQF will consider candidate facility-level performance measures that evaluate significant clinical, systems and care coordination aspects of surgical care. Performance measures that address timeliness, efficiency and coordination of peri-operative care, patient safety, prevention or reduction of complications, transitions of care before and after surgery, as well as outcomes of surgery are of particular interest.
The candidate measures will be considered for NQF endorsement as voluntary consensus standards. Agreement around the recommendations will be developed through NQF’s formal Consensus Development Process. This project, like all NQF activities, involves the active participation of representatives from across the spectrum of healthcare stakeholders and is guided by a Steering Committee.
Funding for this project has been provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
For more information, contact Kristyne McGuinn, at 202.783.1300 or kmcguinn@qualityforum.org.