Quality Assurance & Improvement Flashcards
7 cards from real ABCS practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Quality Assurance & Improvement flashcards as text
Which metric is MOST useful when benchmarking a cosmetic surgery practice's complication rate against national standards?
Answer: Risk-adjusted complication rate
Risk-adjusted complication rates account for patient complexity, enabling fair comparison against national benchmarks.
A QI team discovers that 30% of patients are not receiving pre-operative antibiotic prophylaxis on schedule. The BEST immediate corrective action is:
Answer: Implement a pre-operative checklist that includes antibiotic timing
A structured pre-operative checklist creates a reliable system-level safeguard against missed antibiotic doses.
In the context of ABCS quality standards, 'sentinel event' review is required when:
Answer: An unexpected death or serious patient harm occurs
Sentinel events are unexpected occurrences involving death or serious physical or psychological harm, triggering mandatory root-cause analysis.
Which statistical tool is BEST suited for identifying the most common causes of a recurring surgical complication?
Answer: Pareto chart
A Pareto chart ranks causes by frequency, identifying the 'vital few' causes responsible for the majority of problems.
During a peer review of a rhinoplasty outcome, reviewers should primarily evaluate:
Answer: Adherence to accepted standards of care and appropriateness of clinical decisions
Peer review focuses on whether clinical decisions and technical execution met accepted standards of care.
Which element is essential to a valid informed consent process for cosmetic surgery?
Answer: Disclosure of material risks, benefits, and alternatives in understandable language
Valid informed consent requires that patients receive and understand information about risks, benefits, and alternatives to make a voluntary decision.
A cosmetic surgery center wants to reduce post-operative infection rates. According to QI methodology, the FIRST step is to:
Answer: Measure and baseline the current infection rate
Establishing a baseline measurement is the first step in any quality improvement cycle to quantify the problem before intervening.