AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange Focuses on Surgical Care

Two of the featured innovations in the latest issue of AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange describe how medical centers in Vineland, New Jersey, and Birmingham, Alabama, redesigned processes related to surgical care by implementing the use of electronic systems. The changes led to reductions in surgical delays, better operating room utilization and increased overall efficiency. A third profile describes a hospital that established an innovative cross-division surgical quality group to identify opportunities for systematic improvement, leading to lower surgery-related mortality rates. The featured QualityTools provide resources and checklists to help hospitals deliver safer surgical care by reducing surgical infections, complications and related deaths and preventing wrong-site surgeries.

Hospitals are implementing innovative strategies in surgical care—moving away from traditional paper-based systems, enhancing access to real-time information, and leveraging data in new ways to support quality improvement.

The featured Innovations describe how two medical centers redesigned processes related to surgical care by implementing the use of electronic systems, leading to a reduction in surgical delays, better operating room utilization, and increased overall efficiency. The third profile describes a hospital that established an innovative cross-division surgical quality group to identify opportunities for systematic improvement, leading to lower surgery-related mortality rates.

The featured QualityTools provide resources and checklists to help hospitals deliver safer surgical care by reducing surgical infections, complications, and related deaths, and preventing wrong-site surgeries.