Accredited bariatric surgery center reduces postop complications

Editor's Note

During a 5-year quality improvement project, an academic medical center’s bariatric surgery program lowered its rates of postoperative complications and readmissions, surgical site infections (SSIs) and urinary tract infections (UTIs), and bleeding despite doubling its surgical volume, finds this study presented July 23 at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) 2018 Quality and Safety Conference.

From 2013 to 2017, the number of bariatric surgical procedures performed annually at California-based Stanford Bariatric rose from 234 to 438, while at the same time the bariatric surgery program had the following improvements:

• 30-day readmissions were reduced from 4.7% to 2.1%
• medication reconciliation compliance increased from 83% to 100%
• bleeding decreased from 0.9% to 0%
• UTIs dropped from 1.1% to 0%
• SSIs fell from 2.5% to 0.5%.

Stanford Bariatric is one of more than 800 centers that have earned accreditation through the Metabolic Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program, a voluntary credential awarded jointly by the ACS and American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.