HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Author home page(s): Malcolm Underwood David LC Cheung Permission Requests Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Underwood, M. Articles by Cheung, D. L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Underwood, M. Articles by Cheung, D. L. Related Collections Professional affairs

Quality Assurance in Cardiac Surgery: Implications for Asia

China

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The goal of comprehensive quality assurance in cardiac surgery is quite simply to provide a mechanism whereby the patient is subjected to the least threatening journey through the hospital and is assured of an outcome that conforms to internationally accepted norms. For this to be achieved, there must be a robust framework in place, providing ongoing assessment, multidisciplinary input, and monitoring of all variables that affect the patient’s journey. Important areas of assessment within this framework include patient outcomes (surgical results), appropriateness of care, institutional performance, resource management, and patient and healthcare provider satisfaction.

The assessment of surgical outcome following cardiac surgery is routine and public in many countries. In the United Kingdom, for the first time last year, individual surgical results were published in the national press.¹ There is an annual report from the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons of England and Ireland in the public domain, which gives institutional results and aims to educate both the public and profession alike on the difficulties and pitfalls of preoperative risk assessment and the complexities of analyzing and reporting surgical performance.² There is a national quality accreditation program ongoing, organized by the Society, which will ensure that . . . [Full Text of this Article]