• Jennifer N Ervin, C Ann Vitous, Emily E Wells, Sarah L Krein, Christopher R Friese, and Amir A Ghaferi.
• Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• Ann. Surg. 2023 Feb 1; 277 (2): 233237233-237.

ObjectiveTo understand the effectiveness of Rescue Improvement Conference, a forum that addresses FTR.Summary Of Background DataEvery year over 150,000 patients die after elective surgery in the United States. FTR is the phenomenon whereby delayed recognition and/or response to serious surgical complications leads to a progressive cascade of adverse events culminating in death. Rescue Improvement Conference is an adapted version of the Ottawa-style morbidity and mortality conference, designed to address common contributors to FTR: ineffective communication and inadequate problem solving.MethodsMixed methods data were used to evaluate Rescue Improvement Conference, a bi-monthly forum that was first introduced in our academic medical center in 2018. Conference effectiveness data were collected via survey and open-text responses after 5 conferences between September 2018 and February 2020. We focused on 5 indicators of effectiveness: educational value, conference takeaways, discussion time, changes to surgical practice, and actionable opportunities for improvement. Twelve surgical faculty and house staff also provided feedback during semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis.ResultsConference attendees (N = 140) felt that Rescue Improvement Conference was effective-all 5 indicators had mean scores above 5 on Likert scales. The qualitative data supports the quantitative findings, and 3 additional themes emerged: Rescue Improvement Conference enables the representation of diverse voices, promotes interdisciplinary collaboration, and encourages multilevel problem solving.ConclusionsRescue Improvement Conference has the potential to support other surgical departments in developing system-level strategies to recognize and manage postoperative complications by providing stakeholders a forum to identify and discuss factors that contribute to FTR.Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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