(December 11, 2014) Beirut, Lebanon— For the second consecutive year, the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) has recognized the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) for achieving meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care. Only 44 of the 450 ACS NSQIP participating hospitals received such recognition and AUBMC was one of them. AUBMC was and is still the only medical center outside of North America, to achieve the prestigious distinction and only one out of 12 to do so more than once.
“It is a great attestation for the quality of the surgical care provided at AUBMC,” said Dr. Jamal Hoballah, professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery at AUBMC. “This international recognition affirms our dedication to the meticulous attention we have devoted to patient safety, high quality of care provided, and improved health outcomes at our medical center.” added Dr. Hoballah.
As a participant in ACS NSQIP, AUBMC is required to track the outcomes of selected key inpatient surgical procedures and collect data that directs patient safety and the quality of surgical care improvements.
The ACS NSQIP recognition program commends a select group of hospitals for achieving meritorious outcome performances related to patient management in eight clinical areas: mortality, unplanned intubation, ventilator > 48 hours, renal failure, cardiac incidents (cardiac arrest and myocardial infarction); respiratory (pneumonia); SSI (surgical site infections-superficial and deep incisional and organ-space SSIs); or urinary tract infection. The 44 hospitals commended achieved the distinction based on their outstanding composite quality score in the eight areas listed above. Risk-adjusted data from the July 2014 ACS NSQIP Semiannual Report, which presents data from the 2013 calendar year, were used to determine which hospitals demonstrated meritorious outcomes.
“I would like to recognize the incredible work our staff is doing along with the collaboration of the various other departments at AUBMC involved in the care of the surgical patients, as without them this recognition wouldn’t have been possible. We will continue to challenge ourselves internally to achieve more and raise the bar for the healthcare system in Lebanon and the region,” added Dr. Hoballah.
AUBMC received the official recognition at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress, which was held on Oct. 26-30, 2014, in San Francisco.