How Well Are Surgical Quality Improvement Projects Planned? Review of 242 Surgical Improvement Efforts Across 5 American College of Surgeons Quality Programs.

Background: Structured preparation is necessary to conduct quality improvement (QI) strategies that are relevant to the problem, feasible, appropriately resourced, and potentially effective. Recent work suggests that improvement efforts are suboptimally conducted. Our goal was to determine how well preparation for surgical QI is undertaken, including detailing the problem, setting project goals, and planning an intervention.

Are We Supporting Surgical Quality Improvement in Training and Beyond? A Qualitative Study of Surgical Trainees and Practicing Surgeons.

Background: We conducted a qualitative study to describe surgeon and surgical trainee perspectives of quality improvement (QI) in training and practice to elucidate how surgeons and trainees interact with barriers and leverage facilitators to learn and conduct QI.

Study Design: Surgeons and surgical trainees of the American College of Surgeons were recruited via email and snowball sampling to participate in focus groups. Eligible individuals were English speaking surgical trainees or practicing surgeons.