Measurement of process as quality control in the management of acute surgical emergencies

Quality of care measured by adverse events cannot address errors of process that have no adverse outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine whether process could be used to assess quality of care and whether process analysis could be used to assess interventions designed to improve quality.

A single-centre prospective cohort study was performed over 12 weeks in an acute surgical admission unit. Data were collected prospectively for the first 24 h of admission on three aspects of process: documentation, general management and presentation-specific criteria. After a period of observation, the impact of three interventions (active observation, increasing awareness and issuing a job description) on the mean number of process errors per patient (process score) was compared.

The analysis was based on 566 patients admitted with general surgical pathology. Awareness of being observed failed to improve the process score. Interventions that increased awareness of process reduced the overall process score from 4.79 to 2.38 errors per person (P < 0.001). The mean overall process score in patients with an adverse event was twice that of patients who did not have an adverse event (5.74 (95 per cent confidence interval 4.03 to 7.45) versus 3.43 (3.19 to 3.66)).

Process can be measured objectively and used as a measure of quality of care. Interventions to increase awareness reduced process error rates and adverse events.