National quality group recognizes Mayo Clinic hospitals for outstanding surgical outcomes

January 4, 2021

The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program has recognized Mayo Clinic Hospitals in Rochester, Minnesota, and Jacksonville, Florida; and Mayo Clinic Health System – Eau Claire Hospital in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for achieving meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care. As a program participant, Mayo tracks the outcomes of inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures in order to inform and direct quality improvement efforts.

The recognition is related to a broad range of surgical outcomes, including:

• Mortality
• Unplanned intubation
• Ventilator greater than 48 hours
• Renal failure
• Cardiac incidents (cardiac arrest and myocardial infarction, also known as a heart attack)
• Respiratory (pneumonia)
• Surgical site infections, including superficial and deep incisional and organ infections
• Urinary tract infections

Mayo Clinic Hospital – The Saint Marys and Methodist campuses in Rochester, Mayo Clinic Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, and Mayo Clinic Health System – Eau Claire Hospital achieved the distinction based on outstanding composite quality scores in these eight areas. Risk-adjusted data from the program’s July 2020 Semiannual Report, which represents data from the 2019 calendar year, were used to determine which hospitals demonstrated meritorious outcomes. The Mayo hospitals were among 89 hospitals recognized.

“This commendation is important because it requires hospitals to track patient outcomes in eight key areas following surgery,” says Tad Mabry, M.D. (OR ’05, ORAL ’06), Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and chair of Mayo’s Midwest Surgical Quality Subcommittee. “These metrics help us drive quality improvement efforts and help patients see how we are doing.”

The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program is the only nationally validated quality improvement program that measures and enhances the care of surgical patients. The program measures surgical results 30 days postoperatively and risk adjusts patient characteristics to compensate for differences among patient populations and acuity levels. The program is used in nearly 850 adult and pediatric hospitals.

The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and to improve the care of the surgical patient. With more than 82,000 members, it is the largest organization of surgeons in the world.