The American College of Surgeons’ National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) has recognized Cooper University Health Care as one of only 78 ACS NSQIP-participating hospitals that have achieved meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care in 2021.
The ACS NSQIP recognition program commends a select group of hospitals for achieving a meritorious composite score in either an “All Cases” category or a category that includes only “High Risk” cases. Risk-adjusted data from the 2021 calendar year were used to determine which hospitals demonstrated meritorious outcomes. Cooper was one of only 40 to be recognized on both the “All Cases” and “High Risk” meritorious lists.
“To obtain this level of excellence requires coordinated efforts from all aspects of the patient care team. Cooper has achieved this ACS recognition multiple years, which reflects our team’s continuous dedication and commitment to provide outstanding surgical care for our patients every time,” said Francis R. Spitz, MD, FACS, Vice Chief of the Department of Surgery, Head of the Division of General Surgery at Cooper University Health Care, and Deputy Director of MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper, who spearheaded Cooper’s effort.
As a participant in ACS NSQIP, Cooper tracks the outcomes of inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures and collects data that assess patient safety and can be used to direct improvement in the quality of surgical care.
ACS NSQIP is the only nationally validated quality improvement program that measures and enhances the care of surgical patients. The goal of ACS NSQIP is to reduce surgical morbidity (infection or illness related to a surgical procedure) and surgical mortality (death related to a surgical procedure) and to provide a firm foundation for surgeons to apply what is known as the “best scientific evidence” to the practice of surgery. Furthermore, when adverse effects from surgical procedures are reduced and/or eliminated, a reduction in health care costs follows. ACS NSQIP is a major program of the American College of Surgeons and is currently used in nearly 850 adult and pediatric hospitals.
Cooper offers patients leading-edge surgical options performed by some of the top surgeons in the region and nation in more than a dozen surgical subspecialties. At Cooper, patients have access to advanced procedures, innovative surgical techniques, and state-of-the-art technology in a patient-centered environment. Cooper performs more than 27,000 surgical cases annually.