Surgical site infection, UTI endorsed by NQF as outcomes-based measures

The National Quality Forum recently endorsed two outcomes-based measures from the American College of Surgeons that are pertinent to urology: surgical site infection and urinary tract infection.

The two measures were developed by the American College of Surgeons’ National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) in partnership with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as possible national outcomes measures that could be adopted by the governmental body as early as 2015.

"Increasingly, our national health system is looking for better ways to measure quality care. Better data creates more opportunities to improve the care hospitals provide patients. That’s why it will be important to measure quality using clinical, risk-adjusted, and nationally benchmarked outcomes-based measures," said Clifford Y. Ko, MD, of the ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care. "Endorsement of these measures brings us closer to implementing outcomes-based measures on a national level."

In recent months, the ACS has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to harmonize surgical site infection measures developed by each organization. The newly endorsed surgical site infection measure is a joint measure of the ACS and the CDC with the intent that participation with the measure may be performed through either ACS NSQIP or the CDC National Healthcare Safety Network program.

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