Purpose of This Guide
This guide and the appended tools were developed as part of an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) quality improvement collaborative for the ambulatory surgery environment, the AHRQ Safety Program for Ambulatory Surgery. The guide and tools are designed to outline the critical program elements for implementing this quality improvement initiative in your ambulatory surgery center (ASC).
Background
AHRQ, as part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services National Action Plan to Prevent Health Care-Associated Infections, funded a multi-cohort educational improvement collaborative for the ambulatory surgery environment, titled the AHRQ Safety Program for Ambulatory Surgery. The Health Research & Educational Trust, in partnership with the American Hospital Association, was the prime contractor of this AHRQ contract over a 4-year period. The objectives of this contract were focused on the successful implementation of a checklist-centered quality improvement intervention within all 50 States and Puerto Rico. The program was the first of its kind to focus on the national implementation of a quality improvement intervention within the ambulatory surgery setting. The overall program goal was to reduce infections and enhance patient safety in ASCs through use of the surgical safety checklist.
Anticipated benefits for ASCs participating in the program included—
- Reduction in surgical site infections (SSIs) and other surgical complications.
- Improved patient safety culture.
- Improved ASC patient experience of care.
- Improved provider and staff satisfaction.
How To Use This Guide
This guide is divided into five sections, highlighting the main program elements. We recommend that your plan be inclusive of all five elements to achieve successful implementation. This guide details practical examples, tools, and resources to allow you to integrate these elements in your action plan.
- The Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP).
- Measurement.
- Implementing the Surgical Safety Checklist.
- Infection Prevention.
- Planning for Sustainability.
Program Elements
The Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP)
CUSP is a culture change model that has been successfully applied to improve the way physicians, nurses, and other clinical team members work together. Training tools created for clinicians by clinicians, such as the CUSP Toolkit,1 build capacity to address safety issues by combining clinical best practices and the science of safety. CUSP can help ASCs move from a culture in which a punitive response to error prevails to a culture of safety—a learning environment in which errors are treated as an opportunity to learn about root causes and prevent future errors and risks of harm.
The Toolkit To Improve Safety in Ambulatory Surgery Centers was developed for the ASC environment, and its modules highlight specific CUSP themes and their applicability to ASC surgical settings. In the toolkit, there are 3 sections, Implementation, Sustainability, and Resources. Training and tools in these sections highlight the following themes: (1) Communication and Teamwork in the Surgical Environment, (2) Coaching Clinical Teams, (3) Patient and Family Engagement in the Surgical Environment, and (4) Sustainability.
Measurement
The collection and reporting of data is the cornerstone of any quality improvement initiative. Data allow you to see where you are (benchmark) and assist in guiding you to where you want to be (zero SSIs and reduction in other complications). Along this journey, we emphasize the importance of measurement and encourage you to communicate your progress in a clear and logical fashion.
This guide recommends collecting the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services2 quality care measures and using the AHRQ Ambulatory Surgery Center Survey on Patient Safety Culture (ASC SOPS), which can be used to track changes in patient safety culture over time and evaluate the impact of patient safety interventions. Results of this survey can be used as a way for ASCs to identify opportunities for improvement in your patient safety culture.
Surgical Safety Checklist
The surgical safety checklist is an invaluable tool for optimizing patient safety culture through the use of teamwork and communication strategies, providing standardization across patient care, and decreasing the likelihood of complications or SSIs.3 Every aspect of the checklist and the work involved in implementation is intended to create discussion and make connections between people. When used properly, the checklist helps to create an atmosphere in which people can speak up, input is solicited, and information is shared. By following the recommended process for checklist implementation, you will learn principles that can be applied to other quality improvement projects. You will also gain insight into your colleagues and culture and uncover other opportunities for improvement that can help you shape and prioritize future improvements. This guide will outline the four phases of checklist implementation: Prepare, Own, Expand, and Continually Expand.
Infection Prevention
We believe the overall culture of the ASC can greatly influence the behavior of the individual health care workers on the team. Enhancing patient safety culture improves teamwork and communication, which in turn promotes adherence to evidence-based practice that could prevent infection. Professionals working in your ASC should be routinely trained and competent in infection prevention standards and regulatory requirements to ensure optimal patient safety.
Planning for Sustainability
Start thinking early on about how your team can make quality improvement initiatives and patient safety processes part of your routine, day-to-day work. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) describes four steps for sustaining improvements in your ambulatory surgical safety environment later in this guide. In the Sustainability section of the Toolkit, there are further training and tools, as well as modules describing Management Practices for Sustainability.
1CUSP Toolkit. June 2015. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD.
2ASC Quality Reporting. August 2012. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Baltimore, MD.
3Haynes AB et al. A surgical safety checklist to reduce morbidity and mortality in a global population. N Engl J Med. 2009 Jan 29;360(5):491-9. Epub 2009 Jan 14.
