The Federated Ambulatory Surgery Association (FASA) has taken immediate action to alert its members about the JCAHO Sentinal Event Alert. "Even though a very small proportion of ASCs are accredited through JCAHO, every ASC should evaluate their processes to assure that they are adequate to protect against such events," according to FASA's Executive Director Kathy Bryant.

FASA has requested that JCAHO provide more details about the Sentinel Event Alert released yesterday on wrong site surgery so that FASA can assist the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) industry take action to avoid wrong site surgery. FASA President Robert Williams said, "FASA is eager to get the details so that we can take action. While we believe the ASC industry provides high quality care, even one wrong site surgery occurring is one too many." The information that JCAHO released yesterday does not separate data for ASCs from data for hospital outpatient surgery departments so data is not available at this time as to the exact extent of this problem in ASCs. FASA questions whether there is actually an increase in the incidence or whether the increase shown in the JCAHO data is the result of improved reporting.

Williams added, "More than 6,000,000 surgical procedures are performed in ASCs every year, and the numbers reported by JCAHO for a three-year period are small. However, FASA's goal is that not a single wrong site surgery occur in our industry, and we will continue our efforts to make that a reality." FASA believes it is unlikely that wrong site surgery is occurring disproportionately in ASCs. According to Williams, "Every study that I have seen in the last thirty years comparing ASCs to hospitals has demonstrated the quality in an ASC to be at least as good as in hospitals. FASA's Outcomes Monitoring Project shows an incredibly low level of patient complications." For the second quarter of 2001, 68.2% ASCs report a complication rate of less than three per 1000 patient encounters, with 36.4% of ASCs reporting a complication rate of zero per 1000. 56.8% ASCs did not report a single patient complaint of a substantive nature during that quarter.

For further information contact: Kathy Bryant, Executive Director, 703-836-8808 kbryant@fasa.org.