The Tennessee Center for Patient Safety (TCPS) of the
Tennessee Hospital Association (THA) and the Tennessee
Chapter of the American College of Surgeons (TnACS)
have received a $2.5 million grant from the BlueCross
BlueShield of Tennessee Health Foundation to develop
the Tennessee NSQIP Surgical Quality Consortium, which
is designed to evaluate and improve surgical care
delivered by general and vascular surgeons in the state
of TennesseeThe three-year grant from BlueCross was
announced at news conferences in Chattanooga and
Memphis today.
The funding will be used to support the use of the
American College of Surgeons’ (ACS) National Surgical
Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) in eight hospitals
in Tennessee. 
The hospitals are expected to be selected by summer,
with the program to begin shortly thereafter. ACS began
an initiative to use NSQIP in private sector hospitals in
2004.
Currently, there are three hospitals in Tennessee
that participate in the NSQIP program—Erlanger Health
System, Chattanooga; Vanderbilt University Hospital,
Nashville; and Saint Francis Hospital, Memphis.
In 2006 the ACS chapter began discussions with
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee to explore how they
could advance the adoption of NSQIP in Tennessee hospitals. The chapter is taking a leading role in the coordinated effort with the Tennessee Center for Patient Safety to work with hospitals and BlueCross to further the adoption of NSQIP to improve surgical outcomes in Tennessee hospitals.
“The Tennessee NSQIP Surgical Quality Consortium is a great opportunity to align hospitals’ quality efforts with surgeons in Tennessee. This partnership will provide a valid database for quality improvements that surgeons and hospitals can utilize, and improve care,” explained Craig A. Becker, THA
president.
“We also expect this partnership to carry over into other relationships and future projects with physicians.”
This collaboration between hospitals and surgeons represents an innovative partnership and will significantly enhance the TCPS’s current initiatives on surgical care and reducing infections. It also will involve the collection of additional quality data that has been proven to be effective in driving improvement in surgical outcomes.
Erlanger Health System President and CEO Jim Brexler noted, “As one of the pioneers in the adoption of NSQIP in this state, Erlanger applauds the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Health Foundation for supporting this collaboration between hospitals and surgeons, which will enhance the quality of care to many more patients throughout the state."
“Surgeons across the state are enthusiastic about this consortium, which will allow surgeons and hospitals to look at both the surgical outcomes and key processes that drive those outcomes," said Joe Cofer, MD who is the surgeon championing the program at Erlanger.
The grant funds will help pay for a surgical clinical nurse reviewer at each hospital, who will be responsible for collecting and reviewing the data, and support surgeons from each institution who will serve as quality improvement champions and mentors. Participating hospitals will contribute the remainder of the surgical nurse reviewer expenses, provide information technology resources required to integrate NSQIP tools with existing systems, and pay the annual $35,000 NSQIP fee.
Leadership for the consortium will be provided by surgeons from the TnACS who participate in the NSQIP and Tennessee Center for Patient Safety staff. Surgeon champions at the three current participating hospitals also will work as mentors for the new participating hospitals and physicians.
Hospitals will use aggregate reports to identify improvement opportunities, identify areas that have better than average results, evaluate and identify difference in practice between the hospitals in the state, and ascertain and disseminate best practices in Tennessee.
National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP): The Tennessee ACS chapter has encouraged adoption of the American College of Surgeons’ National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) since its inception in 2004. NSQIP is a severity-adjusted, outcomes-based measurement tool to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors.
ACS developed the NSQIP web-based database that evaluates surgical outcomes. The program is outcomes-based and risk-adjusted, which means it compensates for differences among patients, such as age and overall health status, that otherwise would affect healthcare outcomes.
