Florida Hospital Waterman has joined hospitals and surgeons across the state in a new initiative to improve patient safety and the quality of surgical care, while reducing unnecessary health care costs.

The Florida Surgical Care Initiative (FSCI), a collaborative effort of Florida hospitals led by the Florida Hospital Association and the American College of Surgeons and its Florida chapter, is a unique statewide program that will focus on reducing surgical complications and improving the quality of surgical care in participating hospitals.

FSCI will focus on four key areas:  surgical site infections and urinary tract infections (two common complications), colorectal surgery outcomes (an area with higher rates of complications), and elderly surgery outcomes (since elderly patients are more likely to experience complications).

To help hospitals understand where complications are occurring and why, FSCI participants collect data on patient risk factors and their outcomes after a surgical procedure.  Hospitals across the state work together to review best practices and determine the best ways to prevent complications from occurring.  When complications are prevented, patients recover more quickly and care is less costly. 

“Participating in this program will allow the surgeons and staff at Florida Hospital Waterman to further improve the already excellent level of surgical care that we provide,” says general surgeon David Bjerken, M.D., F.A.C.S.  “By working together with hospitals across the state, we can better understand why complications occur and implement best practices to prevent them.  This means patients will have better outcomes, and we will reduce the costs associated with treating complications, which can add thousands of dollars to the cost of care.”

FSCI is the largest statewide surgical quality collaborative in the country.  The goal of the program is to make Florida a national leader in quality surgical care.

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