CRMC receives national recognition

COOKEVILLE – Cookeville Regional Medical Center (CRMC) has been nationally recognized for its participation in the Tennessee Surgical Quality Collaborative (TSQC), which has reduced surgical complications by 19.7 percent since 2009. This reduction represents at least 533 lives saved and $75.2 million in reduced costs in Tennessee.

CRMC’s recognition comes as part of a presentation at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Collaborative Improvement Program’s (NSQIP) national conference in New York City in July.

“By working together, surgeons, hospitals and insurance groups can improve the quality of care through initiatives such as this one,” said Dr. Scott Copeland, CRMC general and vascular surgeon, who is also the surgeon champion for the CRMC NSQIP initiative and member of the Tennessee NSQIP collaborative. “Maintaining and improving quality is crucial in health care, and by participating in NSQIP, we are identifying potential areas that may need improvement. We are also identifying those areas where we are performing very well.”

The hospital collaborative formed in 2008 as a partnership of the Tennessee Chapter of the American College of Surgeons and the Tennessee Hospital Association’s Tennessee Center for Patient Safety, with support from the Tennessee Health Foundation, the philanthropic arm of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

Through the ACS NSQIP program, TSQC hospitals collected 30-day clinical outcomes data from participating hospitals to examine and identify trends in performance and evaluate best practices. Between 2009 and 2012, participating hospitals collected data on more than 55,000 surgical procedures and researchers examined rates of 17 different types of surgical complications.

An earlier study based on TSQC data published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons in 2012 showed the 10 TSQC members reduced complication rates and saved more than $8 million in excess costs from 2009 to 2010. This new study shows TSQC hospitals continued to improve in the years after the program launched. In 2012, the collaborative expanded and now includes 22 Tennessee hospitals.

“The TSQC has helped align the efforts of hospitals and surgeons around quality improvement, which supports the THA board of directors’ commitment toward zero incidents of preventable harm in our state’s hospitals,” Craig A. Becker, THA president, said. “This collaborative is an excellent example of how the hospital association, physicians, hospitals and payers can work together to improve care using clinically valid measures in a cooperative way.”

Cookeville Regional is a member of the Tennessee Surgical Quality Collaborative (TSQC), a joint project of the Tennessee Chapter of the American College of Surgeons and Tennessee Hospital Association designed to improve surgical care. The TSQC hospitals participate in a national clinical outcomes database for surgery called the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP). For more information on TSQC, visit www.tnsqc.com.

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