NAMES IN THE NEWS
ASCQC Releases ASC Safety & Quality Assessment
FEBRUARY 3, 2025
The ASC Quality Collaboration (ASCQC), an organization dedicated to advancing patient safety and quality of care delivery in ASCs, announced the official release of its ASC Safety & Quality Assessment, according to a release.
The ASC Safety & Quality Assessment is a complimentary, online survey surgery centers can use to benchmark themselves against key attributes that help define a safe, high-quality site of ambulatory surgical care. The assessment is open to any of the more than 6,000 Medicare-certified ASCs, with the annual submission period running from February 1–March 15, 2025, according to the release. To take the assessment, participants will initially need to collect some basic information about their ASC, which is identified on the ASCQC website. Completion of the digital survey should take about 20 minutes if ASCs are prepared with the required information.
Topics covered in the assessment include patient safety, patient experience, admissions and transfers, infection control and prevention, medication management, and governance. After the submission period has closed, participants will receive a report with individual center results and aggregate results for all participating ASCs. Surgery centers can use the results to demonstrate their quality to patients, payers, prospective physicians, employers and the communities they serve, according to the release. The report also can help foster improvement, show a center's commitment to the delivery of safe, high-quality patient care and promote the ASC community's value story.
"This release of the ASC Safety & Quality Assessment is an exciting initiative for ASCQC that we believe will positively impact surgery centers nationwide," said Kathy Wilson, ASCQC executive director, in the release. "The assessment will provide participating ASCs with insights to help them implement best practice policies, procedures and processes that will enhance their care and outcomes. We encourage surgery center leaders to take the assessment and help build awareness among their peers about its availability. Increased participation will expand the data set and contribute to greater value for ASCs."
The official release of the ASC Safety & Quality Assessment followed a summer 2024 pre-release that was limited to 200 surgery centers. The information gathered during this period enabled ASCQC to improve the assessment process and experience.
"ASCQC is grateful to the surgery centers that participated in the pre-release and the broader support our organization has received from the ASC industry as we developed the assessment," said Becky Ziegler-Otis, CASC, ASCQC assistant executive director, in the release. "We believe this is an incredibly invaluable tool—one that will empower surgery centers to identify new opportunities for continuous improvement and further convey the advantages of ASCs to patients, payers and other stakeholders as the preferred site of service for a growing number of surgical procedures."
ASCs interested in completing the ASC Safety & Quality Assessment can begin the process on the ASCQC website.