LOUISVILLE, Ky. – UofL Health – UofL Hospital is one of the first 28 hospitals in the world to become verified by the American College of Surgeons Quality Verification Program (ACS QVP). The ACS QVP Standards provide a proven, standardized method for establishing, measuring, and improving a hospital’s quality infrastructure across all surgical departments.
The inaugural group of QVP hospitals includes three international hospitals—two in Japan and one in Australia—and 25 U.S. hospitals. The first group of hospitals verified by ACS QVP includes a variety of hospital types and sizes, such as community, large and mid-size academic, public safety-net, military, and small/rural, among others.
“For patients, this designation means that they can be assured they are being treated at a hospital that makes patient safety and quality our number one priority,” said Michael Egger, MD, UofL Hospital surgical quality officer. “QVP demonstrates we have the culture and infrastructure in place to continue to review and improve our care delivery so that our patients receive the highest quality surgical care.”
UofL Hospital, an academic teaching and research hospital, serving Louisville and the region, met the criteria to be verified as an American College of Surgeons QVP Focused Hospital. Under the ACS QVP Focused designation, UofL Hospital has demonstrated an active commitment to establishing a surgery-wide quality infrastructure that has been implemented in at least 2 surgical departments and will continue broader implementation across all surgical specialties.
“QVP takes a wholistic approach to improving surgical care in hospitals. It looks at surgery overall, and not just one specific specialty, so all surgical patients benefit when their hospital is verified for this quality program by the America College of Surgeons,” said Clifford Y. Ko, MD, MHS, FACS, FASCRS, Director of the ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care.
As an ACS QVP hospital, UofL Hospital received an in-depth assessment at the hospital and specialty levels. The assessment includes customized, actionable recommendations—such as how to engage everyone from hospital leadership to frontline providers to establish a generative safety and quality culture. ACS QVP provides the tools for QVP hospitals to develop a standardized approach to surgical care to help reduce complications, minimize waste, and increase the value of surgical care for their patients.
ACS QVP is based on 12 program standards, outlined in the Optimal Resources for Surgical Quality and Safety 2021 ACS QVP Standards manual. The ACS QVP standards are adapted from core elements of the Optimal Resources for Surgical Quality and Safety, or “Red Book.” The program builds on the College’s long-standing commitment to surgical quality by using principles gleaned from experience working with the roughly 3,000 hospitals that participate in ACS Quality Programs. The key principles of ACS QVP are driven by data surveillance along with standardized processes and systems to find, fix, and prevent problems to improve the quality and safety of surgical patient care.
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