QUALITY
Exceptional Anesthesia Care
We are committed to elevating the standards of anesthesia for every patient.
We make a measurable difference.
At USAP, we pride ourselves on delivering the highest quality anesthesia patient care across the nation.
Our industry-leading clinicians, clinical quality committees, local clinical governance boards and proprietary IT tools enable advanced data capture, analytics and continuous improvement in all aspects of our practice. Our innovative ideas and measurement capabilities raise the bar for the entire industry and shape the future of anesthesia as we know it.
Our exclusive focus on anesthesia and unwavering commitment to quality provide an unmatched depth of expertise in anesthesia care. We aren’t trying to do all things — we are committed to doing one thing with excellence.
Our clinicians are knowledgeable thought leaders and include some of the world’s foremost experts in anesthesia with talent throughout every subspecialty including cardiovascular, neurosurgery, obstetrics, orthopedics and pediatrics.
Each physician group has its own clinical governance board, which is responsible for all clinical decision-making for their practice.
Our Clinical Quality Committee guides the clinical quality of our entire organization to ensure all of our patients get the best care possible. Members discuss rare cases, complications, research, data, lessons learned and best practices.
Our clinicians share best practices through our clinical quality committees and national network of clinicians. Sharing drives improvements in all areas of our clinical practice, increasing patient safety, outcomes and satisfaction.
We continually invest in understanding outcomes by asking for feedback from every patient. We then apply sophisticated analytics and gain valuable information and insight that can be shared with clinicians in aggregate or at the individual level. We can also share learnings and data with our surgeon and hospital colleagues to drive continued improvement.
No other anesthesia group does everything that we do, the way we do it.
Our CQI program is a data-driven, clinical care and risk management program with proven, positive results. We monitor 50 different clinical quality indicators, digitally collecting the data from every case, every day, at every facility we serve. Our best-in-class IT tools and advanced analytics allow us to generate accurate quality data and yield greater insight into quality patient care.
By measuring our own quality metrics, we gain additional insight into patient care and our impact on patient satisfaction, outcomes, OR efficiencies and more. We use this data to improve our care and enhance the patient experience. In addition, we can share this data with health systems, hospitals, ASCs, payers and other partners.
Above the national bar for patient satisfaction
We capture clinical outcome data for every case, using MD Cloud or Medaxion apps, via mobile phones and tablets. We then share the data, down to the individual clinician level, so everyone knows exactly where they stand.
We exceed national benchmarks in many of the most important quality measures, such as mortality, hospital length of stay and patient satisfaction.
The more data we collect and analyze, the better able we are to continually improve and deliver the best patient care, patient outcomes, reduce hospital lengths of stay, reduce disruptions caused by day-of-surgery cancellations and schedule changes, drive down costs and enhance the patient experience.
Examples of this include:
Bundle Compliance vs. Length of Stay
We frequently work with surgical and facility partners to improve operational efficiency. For example, there are more than four dozen different "Enhanced Recovery After Surgery"(ERAS) or "Perioperative Surgical Home" (PSH) pathways within different institutions. We lead or participate in ERAS or PSH projects at multiple sites, typically focused on colorectal surgery, total joint replacement, spine surgery, or major urologic procedures. We have documented reductions in length of stay and total cost of care associated with these efforts. These projects have produced documented reductions in cost-per-case and length of stay for our hospital partners.
Immediate Perioperative Mortality Rate
USAP is a leading participant in the National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry. Our outcomes speak for themselves — we use NACOR benchmarks to compare ourselves to other practices.
Meeting Joint Commission requirements
We provide Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (OPPE) and Hospital Compare data to our hospital partners.
Direct path to clinical leadership
Every USAP clinician has direct access to the Chief Quality Officer to request data, analysis or advice. Our Chief Quality Officer, Dr. Dutton, is the former Chief Quality Officer of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and founding Executive Director of the Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI), which maintains the largest anesthesia data registry in the world, National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry . He represents our specialty in numerous influential ways, including with CMS, AHRQ and the National Quality Forum.
We solicit patient satisfaction information for every case. If we have an unsatisfied patient, we individually follow-up with them and ask for details to resolve any issues.
Using feedback gathered from patients we actively promote improvements in safety and quality through various outlets including in our monthly digest to all clinicians, with a series of articles focused on clinical care, covering topics such as Exparel, Sugammadex, pediatric anesthetic effects on the brain, corneal abrasion prevention and dural puncture headache prophylaxis.
