The Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) is a national partnership of organizations committed to improving the safety of surgical care through the reduction of post-operative complications. Delmarva will be working with hospitals on this project as part of the National Patient Safety Initiative (NPSI) under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service’s (CMS) 9th Scope of Work (SOW). The ultimate goal of the partnership is to reduce nationally the incidence of surgical complications by 25 percent by the year 2010. Partners in SCIP believe that a meaningful reduction in complications requires that surgeons, anesthesiologists, perioperative nurses, pharmacists, infection control professionals and hospital executives work together to intensify their commitment to making surgical care improvement a priority. This project will also include a small heart failure component.

In addition to continuing to reduce surgical site infections (SSIs), the SCIP Partnership has broadened the scope of the new national project by targeting additional adverse events to include venous thromboembolic and cardiac complications.

Project Description

The SCIP Project
The SCIP project is a hospital initiative designed to educate providers and encourage institutional leaders to increase the use of evidence-based care processes in an effort to make surgery safer and reduce adverse patient outcomes. Each hospital participating in this project will have access to all Delmarva resources including onsite visits, consultations, intervention strategies and support for data analysis.