General Surgery Board Review Quality Control & Assurance 2

Question 1

Which metric is used by the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) as a primary outcome measure?

Accepted Answer

30-day morbidity and mortality

Answer

ACS NSQIP tracks 30-day postoperative morbidity and mortality as its primary outcomes to allow risk-adjusted, peer-to-peer hospital comparison.

Question 2

A hospital's observed-to-expected (O/E) ratio for surgical site infections is 1.8. What does this indicate?

Accepted Answer

The hospital has 80% more SSIs than predicted by risk-adjusted models

Answer

An O/E ratio >1 means the hospital's observed complications exceed what risk models predict, signaling a quality problem.

Question 3

Which Joint Commission standard specifically addresses the prevention of wrong-site, wrong-procedure, and wrong-patient surgery?

Accepted Answer

Universal Protocol

Answer

The Universal Protocol requires pre-procedure verification, site marking, and a time-out immediately before every invasive procedure.

Question 4

In the context of quality improvement, what does 'process measure' refer to?

Accepted Answer

Steps in care delivery shown to correlate with better outcomes

Answer

Process measures assess whether evidence-based care steps (e.g., prophylactic antibiotics within 60 minutes) were performed, as proxies for good outcomes.

Question 5

Which of the following best describes a 'sentinel event' as defined by The Joint Commission?

Accepted Answer

An unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury

Answer

A sentinel event is an unexpected patient safety event that results in death, permanent harm, or severe temporary harm, mandating a root cause analysis.

General Surgery Board Review Practice Test

General Surgery Board Review Practice Test

General Surgery Board Review Quality Control & Assurance 2