Georgia hospitals partner to reduce surgical complications

Nine hospitals are banding together to form the Georgia Surgical Quality Collaborative and another five anticipate joining the partnership at some point during 2013.

The collaborative will utilize the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) to share information and compare surgical outcomes with each other, as well as hospitals nationwide, according to a statement. The ACS NSQIP is a database containing information on preoperative, intraoperative and 30-day outcome variables on more than 117,000 surgical procedures.

A study published in the September issue of the Journal of American College of Surgeons determined that hospitals utilizing the tool each prevented an average of 250-500 surgical complications, prevented an average of 12 to 26 deaths and saved an average of $3 million.