In September, the ACS and the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) launched the Emergency General Surgery Verification Program (EGS-VP), a new surgical quality program that will help hospitals establish and maintain the highest standards in emergency general surgery.
“The ACS has been committed to ensuring the highest standards in quality surgical care for more than 100 years,” said ACS Executive Director and CEO Patricia L. Turner, MD, MBA, FACS. “This new quality program, developed in collaboration with AAST, will help hospitals ensure that they are delivering optimal care for every patient requiring emergency general surgery. We are confident that by introducing these standards and the new EGS-VP we will see improved patient care and better outcomes.”
The program standards manual, Optimal Resources for Emergency General Surgery, provides the resources, support, pathways, and multidisciplinary involvement necessary for participation. EGS disease areas specified in the manual are acute abdomen/peritonitis, soft tissue infection, gallbladder disease, gastrointestinal obstruction, pancreatitis, diverticular disease, appendicitis, acute gastrointestinal bleed, perforated peptic ulcer disease, and incarcerated hernia.
“These 43 standards raise the bar of emergency general surgery. We are talking about hospital commitment, appropriate facilities and equipment, dedicated trained personnel and services, clinical care, continuity, robust data collection, quality improvement, education, and research,” said Raul Coimbra, MD, PhD, FACS, surgeon-in-chief, Riverside University Health System Medical Center, and professor of surgery, Loma Linda University School of Medicine. “All those components will be analyzed to achieve verification. Not just a hospital’s clinical care, but their institutional commitments, the data they collect, how they use the data to improve quality and care delivery, and how they use data for education and research.”
EGS-VP has been developed for the unique needs of emergency general surgery patients and providers. The program addresses:
- Resources: Standards specific to the diverse nature of EGS
- Data: A targeted registry within the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP®) platform designed with EGS outcomes and variables in mind
- Clinical care: Development of standardized pathways of care utilizing a multidisciplinary approach
- Value-added care: Recognition that the right team, timeframe, and support provides the best opportunity to improve outcomes
Pilot sites that have participated in the program have commended EGS-VP for providing the resources to evaluate and improve emergency general surgery services.
A key aspect of EGS-VP is the role of data collection in improving care. Alongside the EGS-VP, the EGS Targeted Module of the ACS NSQIP registry has been developed to bring hospitals the data they need to advance their quality processes. The first registry of its kind to capture both operative and nonoperative cases, the module offers participating hospitals access to targeted EGS variables and reports designed specifically to support outcomes measurement and improvement. Leveraging the features of the ACS NSQIP platform allows participants to capture clinically relevant, risk-adjusted data and benchmark their outcomes in a national registry.
“EGS-VP follows in the strong tradition of surgical quality improvement programs administered by the ACS. The program is built on the College’s quality principles to provide hospitals with a framework to create a culture of patient safety and develop highly reliable care delivery,” said Clifford Y. Ko, MD, MS, MSHS, FACS, FASCRS, Director, ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care.
Enrollment is now open for hospitals interested in participating in the EGS-VP. For more information, visit facs.org/quality-programs/accreditation-and-verification/emergency-general-surgery.
