New results from the 22-hospital Tennessee Surgical Quality Collaborative (TSQC) indicate that in just three years, the 10 original hospitals that formed the collaborative were able to reduce surgical complications by 19.7 percent and 30-day mortality by 31.5 percent. The hospitals’ researchers say this equates to at least 533 lives saved and $75.2 million in reduced costs.

The findings from the now 5-year-old collaborative were presented Monday at the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP^®) National Conference in New York City. To arrive at the complication and mortality reduction percentage, 30-day outcomes data from the original 10 participating hospitals collected in 2009, the first full year of the collaborative, were compared with the same measures collected in 2012 by the ACS NSQIP program. The data collected came from more than 55,000 surgical procedures and improvements were seen in 13 of the 17 different types of postoperative occurrences (complications) tracked.

According to a press release from the ACS, the largest improvements were seen in surgical site infections, pneumonia and urinary tract infections. These of course align with quality measures collected for value-based payment programs like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) fiscal year 2014 hospital value-based purchasing program.

Allowing hospitals, some of which may be competitors, to come together to share best practices in the interest of patient safety has been one of the big pluses of the program so far.

“Our results show not only have Tennessee hospitals improved care, but we’ve been able to sustain those improvements over time,” stated Brian Daley, M.D., MBA, FACS, lead author of the study and professor of surgery and chief of the division of trauma and critical care at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, in the press release. “Our collaborative approach and use of robust clinical outcomes data through ACS NSQIP is an effective model for quality improvement across our state and nationally.”