Missy Danforth of The Leapfrog Group explains the importance of quality measurement in ASCs.

In 2019, The Leapfrog Group launched an ambulatory surgery center survey, as well as a new section to its hospital survey over outpatient procedures. Missy Danforth, vice president of healthcare ratings, stressed the importance of using these quality measurement surveys. “We want to trigger giant leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of healthcare, specifically by using transparency to support informed decision making and value-based purchasing,” she said.

The ASC survey is free and open every year between April 1 and November 30; used to assess surgery centers’ performance on national measures of safety, quality and efficiency; and applicable to centers that care for adults and children. It also fulfills the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requirement to have an ongoing quality program.

The focus is on nine surgical specialties, which were selected based on the highest volume of procedure performance in both ASCs and hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs). In the end, the results can help patients, employers and health plan groups by, say, educating the public on the safety of local centers or acting as a purchaser tool, by identifying facilities for direct contracting and other value-based purchasing programs.  

The results also assist health plan user groups by bringing together employer members to work with national and regional health plans, in order to create goals and evaluate how well purchasing principles are being met.

Regular assessments like this are meant to make sure surgery centers are doing everything possible to keep safe, quality and efficient care in mind. The Leapfrog ASC Survey, in particular, can provide a baseline for benchmarking progress and can promote healthy competition with others in the industry. By utilizing this information, TASCS members can grow the quality of their ASCs and improve the overall care they deliver.