National Surgical Quality Improvement Program integration with Morbidity and Mortality conference is essential to...

Area of Science:

• Surgical quality improvement
• Patient safety
• Healthcare systems analysis

Background:

• Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conferences and the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) are established systems for enhancing surgical care quality.
• Evaluating the commonality and trends of adverse events (AEs) between these two systems is crucial for understanding their complementary roles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the degree of overlap in reported adverse events (AEs) between M&M and NSQIP registries.
• To analyze changes in AE rates and identify differences in focus between the two systems over a two-year period.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective analysis of a single institution's M&M and NSQIP registries was conducted.
• Adverse events were categorized using standardized causal determinant groups to compare reporting.
• Incidence and patient commonality of AEs were evaluated over two years.

Main Results:

• In 2012, 68 common patients represented 27% of NSQIP and 43% of M&M cases.
• The rate of common AEs reported by both systems decreased from 16.9% in 2013 to 9.6% in 2014.
• Significant differences (P < .0001) were found in the proportion of issues addressed by each system's causality codes.

Conclusions:

• M&M conferences and NSQIP have distinct focuses, even with standardized coding.
• The low commonality of reported AEs highlights the value of NSQIP as a supplement to voluntary M&M reporting.
• Combining data from both M&M and NSQIP holds potential for improving the identification and elimination of preventable surgical adverse events.