Journal of the American College of Surgeons Paper: Discharge to Post-Acute Care as a Benchmarking Metric for Elderly Surgical Patients
The Journal of the American College of Surgeons has published a paper on "Discharge to Post-Acute Care as a Benchmarking Metric for Elderly Surgical Patients."
Supported in part by JAHF, the study analyzed data from nearly 280,000 patients across 494 hospitals participating in the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. Results showed that:
- More than 11% of older patients were discharged to post-acute care after surgery
- Nearly one-fourth of hospitals earned an “Exemplary” rating, while one-fourth were rated as “Needs Improvement”
- Key risk factors for discharge to post-acute care include inpatient surgery and higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) class status
Discharge destination is an important but often overlooked measure of quality, showing not just whether surgery was safe, but whether older adults can return home afterward. Because the study’s findings were consistent across many types of hospitals, the research makes a strong case for using this measure more widely, and demonstrates that benchmarking on this outcome can help hospitals identify opportunities to improve surgical care quality for older adults.
Read the paper.
Learn more about ACS Geriatric Surgery Verification.
Learn more about ACS.
Learn more about JAHF's support of ACS.
