The ASC Quality Collaboration (ASCQC) has released its ASC Safety & Quality Assessment tool.
ASCQC is an organization focused on advancing patient safety and quality of care in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). It officially announced the release of the new tool on Feb. 3.
The ASC Safety & Quality Assessment is a free online survey that surgery centers can use to “benchmark themselves against key attributes that help define a safe, high-quality site of ambulatory surgical care,” according to ASCQC.
The assessment is open to any of the more than 6,000 Medicare-certified ASCs, with the annual submission period running from Feb. 1 through March 15 of this year.
“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,” Kathy Wilson, ASCQC’s executive director, said in a press release. “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, Wilson noted.
Some of the topics covered in the assessment include patient safety, patient experience, admissions and transfers, infection control and prevention, medication management and governance, according to ASCQC.
Those who participate in the assessment will receive a report with individual center results and aggregate results for all participating ASCs once submissions close. In turn, surgery centers can then use the results to showcase their quality to patients, payers, prospective physicians, employers and others.
The official release of the ASC Safety & Quality Assessment followed a summer 2024 prerelease that was limited to 200 surgery centers.
Wilson previously explained to Ambulatory Surgery Centers News how the survey could benefit ASCs in their talks with payer partners.
“We talked to some payers when we were developing the survey to find out what kinds of things would be important to them. We are going to rely on the centers to share the information with the payers,” Wilson previously said. “We won’t be releasing the results of the center’s survey; they will be working directly with a payer, hopefully to provide that information. We’re hoping it’ll be helpful – something concrete that they can provide when they’re trying to set up a contract.”
ASCQC was formed in 2006 with the goal of developing standardized ASC quality measures.
The group’s stakeholders include executives from ASC management companies, along with leaders from industry associations, accreditation organizations and several other entities.
