Surgical quality is a term that is often thrown around in surgical practice. We have multiple quality improvement projects, metrics and benchmarks that motivate us to do better, and of course the ever expanding patient reviews to possibly “reflect” the type of surgical care provided. But what does quality actually mean? What metrics can we use to understand the type of care being provided by ourselves, our colleagues, and the health system at large.

Today, we delve into these questions to understand how quality is currently understood within surgery and how we hope it to evolve in the future. Joining BTK fellow Agnes Premkumar and ASGBI hosts Jared Wohlgemut and Gita Lingam are two fantastic guests - Dr. Mark Cheetham, joining us from the UK, has deep experience in national audits and system-level quality improvement. Dr. Cheetham is a colorectal surgeon and the National Clinical Lead for General Surgery at the Getting it Right First Time Programme in NHS England, or GIRFT. Dr. Alexander Perez is representing the US; he is a board-certified general surgeon and minimally invasive surgeon at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center. He has worked extensively with institutional quality programs and is the current assistant Dean for patient safety, simulation, and process improvement at the Baylor College of Medicine.

Resources:

1. Institute for Healthcare Improvement: https://www.ihi.org/library/tools/quality-improvement-essentials-toolkit
2. NSQIP: https://www.facs.org/quality-programs/data-and-registries/acs-nsqip/
3. Getting it right first time (UK): https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/

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