Improving Surgical Complications and Patient Safety at the Nation's Largest Military Hospital: An Analysis of National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Data.

INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Military Health System cares for over 9 million patients and encompasses 63 hospitals and 413 clinics worldwide. Military medicine balances the simultaneous tasks of caring for those patients wounded in military engagements, treating large numbers of families of service men and women, and training the next generation of health care providers and ancillary staff. Similar to civilian health care delivery in the United States, military medicine has also seen increased scrutiny in the areas of cost and quality. In 2014, the U.S. military medical health care system was criticized for higher than average surgical complication rates and concerns regarding patient safety, quality of care, lack of transparency, and compartmentalized leadership. The San Antonio Military Medical Center was specifically cited as having "a perennial problem with surgical infection control…the infection rate of surgical wounds was 77% higher than expected given the mix of cases, according to a Pentagon-ordered comparison with civilian hospitals." To determine the scope of complication rates, data from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) were analyzed. The goal of this article is to describe the NSQIP surgical outcome data for the U.S. Military's largest medical center from 2009 to 2014 and compare national averages in the areas of mortality, morbidity, cardiac occurrences, pneumonia, unplanned intubation, ventilator use greater than 48 hours, infections, readmissions, and return to operating room.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Retrospective data analysis of NSQIP data from 2009 to 2014 at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, a level I trauma center for military members and eligible dependents along with civilian trauma patients. Observed event rates were compared with expected event rates for each year with the 2-tail Fisher's exact test to determine if rates were significantly different from each other. Cochran-Armitage Trend Test was performed to compare trends in time for the observed event rates. This study was exempt from institutional review board Approval.

RESULTS

Complication rates remained stable or decreased over the 5 years studied. Significant improvement in morbidity and surgical site infections were observed during the observation period. All other variables except urinary tract infections were within expected range or decreased during this time. Urinary tract infection rates, although decreasing, remain above the expected value.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

NSQIP data at the Department of Defense's largest hospital reveals complication rates similar to civilian hospitals. The majority of areas studied revealed improving or stable complication rates. The ACS NSQIP is a nationally validated, risk-adjusted, outcomes program that is widely used by many leading hospital institutions. Similar to most quality data reporting articles, a weakness of our study may have been collection of all complications. Yet, we are confident that the majority of complications were captured as we have dedicated personnel monitoring the adverse events measured by ACS NSQIP. Future areas of study should focus on continued analysis of surgical quality improvement within the entire military system.