David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS, Describes How Hospitals Improve and Sustain Quality While Lowering Costs

David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS, executive director, American College of Surgeons (ACS), says that his organization has studied the concept of improving and sustaining quality while lowering costs. They find there are a variety of results when it comes to hospitals creating, meeting, and maintaining quality standards.

Hospitals that are successful have surgical leadership that is committed to meeting quality measurements, have the appropriate tools and databases in place to measure quality, and use clinical data as opposed to administrative data in their measurements. Dr Hoyt also says that improvement teams utilize the data they have obtained to make changes they identify as necessary.

“With that, the lowering of complications, you avoid unnecessary costs and it brings a significant cost reduction just by improving the quality of care through those means,” says Dr Hoyt.