Quality assurance in the endoscopy suite: sedation and monitoring

Education and training is the first line of defense in maintaining patient safety and providing quality care in the Endoscopy suite. Ensuring that the health care provider is well trained minimizes the risk to the patient. Quality assurance begins and ends with training. Quality assurance in the endoscopy suite related to sedation is accomplished through training and ongoing data collection using structure, process, and outcome measures. Monitoring compliance to standards with continual feedback of results allows the endoscopist to evaluate performance on an ongoing basis. The endoscopist has no choice but to become an active participant in the quality assurance process to improve the quality and value of their work.