Rachel Kelz, MD, MSCE
HUP was one of the first hospitals to receive the American College of Surgeons’ new Surgical Quality Partner distinction, a recognition of the hospital’s dedication to the safest and most effective surgical care. It was one of 28 programs in the country honored with the designation.
"As an ACS Surgical Quality Partner, HUP has shown a commitment to three things: providing the best possible patient care, evaluating that care in a rigorous fashion, and dedicating themselves to continual self-improvement," ACS Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Patricia L. Turner, MD, MBA, said in a press release.
Before the pandemic, Rachel Kelz, MD, MSCE, William Maul Measey Professor of Surgery and HUP’s ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQI) Surgeon Champion, oversaw a massive effort to inventory and advance the processes of care that ensure quality and safety for surgical patients treated at HUP. The effort involved every department involved with surgical patients, from the moment a patient is advised to visit a surgeon until after they are discharged from the hospital.
“We pulled together the entire house of surgery and it was really inspirational,” Kelz said. “I was so proud when we convened for the ACS site visit, in a pre-pandemic 2019 environment, around that huge table with every seat taken: all of the surgical chairs, the leaders of Perioperative Services, the anesthesiologists, the nurses, the administrators, the support staff ... everybody proudly conveying all the information that we had taken months to put together.”
Although the pandemic slowed the hospital’s efforts to act on the ACS recommendations to further enhance surgical quality and safety, Kelz looks forward to a renewed commitment to quality-improvement policies, such as having a chief surgical quality officer, standard patient case reviews, optimized communication, and leadership training.
“It is a reminder of how much we can accomplish and the amazing transformations that can be achieved when we work together as a team,” Kelz said.