Safety and Quality Improvement Committee

By Morgan Brown, MD, PhD

Dr. Brown

We are very excited to announce the new Safety and Quality Improvement Committee for the CCAS.  Safety and quality improvement are at the foundation of our practice as congenital cardiac anesthesiologists and progress in these areas will allow our specialty to grow in the future.  I am honored to be the first Chair of this committee of individuals who all share a passion for improving the safety for our patients.  There was a lot of interest in this new committee and a small group of anesthesiologists have been selected who represent some of the diverse practices of congenital cardiac anesthesia.  Our members include:

1. Philip Adams – Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
2. Lisa Caplan – Texas Children’s Hospital
3. Vannessa Chin – Toronto Sick Kids
4. Stephen Gleich – Mayo Clinic
5. Jennifer Hernandez – Children’s Medical Center of Dallas
6. Martina Richtsfeld – University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital
7. Lori Riegger – University of Michigan Mott Children’s
8. Stephen Weston – UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital
9. Gina Whitney – Children’s Hospital Colorado

Our mission is to measure and improve the quality of care and safety of children and adults with congenital heart disease undergoing cardiac and noncardiac anesthesia.  Our committee has identified major focus areas including educational initiatives and collaborative learning projects.  We have begun to develop critical events checklists specifically for congenital cardiac anesthesia and we will also create a collection of resources of best practices for various areas relevant to congenital cardiac anesthesia including handover tools, infection prevention, neurodevelopmental outcomes, and blood conservation.  Our committee is also dedicated to the identification and definition of quality metrics relevant to congenital cardiac anesthesia.  We hope to have workshops in the future to try to provide the membership with a theoretical framework for quality improvement, and also to encourage everyone to start or participate in quality improvement initiatives at their home institutions.

We will be partnering with the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Committee (David Vener, Chair) and the Research Committee (David Faraoni, Chair) to try to work together to leverage our resources and collaborate to improve patient care.

We have begun planning our first steps and we will be updating our area on the CCAS website with resources for both safety and quality improvement.  Please join us at the Annual Meeting where our committee meeting will be open for all to participate!  Please also follow us on Twitter @PedsCardiacAnes.