Journal of the American College of Surgeons
-
Structured preparation is necessary to conduct quality improvement (QI) strategies that are relevant to the problem, feasible, appropriately resourced, and potentially effective. Recent work suggests improvement efforts are sub-optimally conducted. Our goal was to determine how well preparation for surgical QI is undertaken, including detailing the problem, setting project goals, and planning an intervention. ⋯ Thorough planning is a critical component of effective QI, and our study reflects significant opportunity for its improvement. The ACS Quality Framework may serve as a guide to improve QI planning, thereby promoting efficiency and effectiveness of these efforts.
-
Leadership is a skill that all surgeons are confronted with in some capacity. Surprisingly in the US most training programs do not offer a structured program in leadership and there certainly are no metrics used to assess leadership competency. As a response to this, at The Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery (SCVS) a panel of leaders in vascular surgery both national and international, along with leadership experts discussed some of the salient issues in this space. This document is the result of this discussion and serves as a good framework for understanding needs and current shortcomings of leadership training.
-
Prolongation of treatment package time is strongly associated with inferior oncologic outcomes. We examine the effect of creation of a multidisciplinary head and neck clinic on treatment package times. ⋯ Colocalization of radiation oncology and otolaryngology care in multidisciplinary clinic substantially improved time to postoperative radiotherapy and treatment package times. This is likely due to the identification of patients requiring adjuvant radiation earlier in their clinical presentation which in turn allowed for advanced planning and minimization of delays in initiation of adjuvant radiation.
-
CPT codes for ventral hernia repair (VHR) changed in January 2023 to address the heterogeneity of procedures with a concomitant shift from a 90-day to a 0-day global period. This study reviews a tertiary referral center's experience with hernia coding comparing the work relative value units (wRVUs) generated for ventral hernia repair pre-2023 compared to post-2023. ⋯ Procedural wRVUs for anterior abdominal hernia repair increased from 2022 to 2023 (p<0.001) at a tertiary referral medical center. However, total wRVUs, including the operation and postoperative visits, remained unchanged.