As part of the American College of Surgeons’ yearlong Centennial celebration, the Bulletin has been reprinting articles centered on the issues and developments that have defined the character and integrity of the organization for the last 100 years. To close out this series, this month’s reprint from March 2003 provides details on the College’s ongoing efforts to improve quality and patient safety.
The authors look back at the College’s earliest contributions to quality improvement and its development of registries to monitor and identify effective treatments for trauma and cancer. They also describe the drivers of the public’s more recent demands for quality improvement and public reporting of outcomes data and describes the College’s initial efforts to bring the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program into the private sector through what is now known as ACS NSQIP®.
Given the ground this article covers, its publication here seems a fitting way to end the College’s reflections on the past 100 years and to explore the issues and College programs that will define the future of surgical care.
