American College of Surgeons Recognizes North York General’s Outstanding Surgery Program

North York General Hospital has once again achieved “meritorious outcomes” status for surgical patient care delivered in 2022 through the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®). The goal of the program is to reduce surgical complications and improve the overall quality of surgical care.

“Quality and patient safety define our culture and are at the heart of everything we do at North York General,” says Mary Chen, Program Director of Surgery at NYGH. “This recognition by the American College of Surgeons reflects our deep commitment to meeting the highest standards in surgery so we can provide our patients with the best possible outcomes.”

The ACS NSQIP program has recognized 78 participating hospitals for achieving meritorious outcomes based on outstanding composite scores in the following clinical areas:

• Mortality
• unplanned intubation
• ventilator for more than 48 hours
• renal failure
• cardiac incidents (cardiac arrest and myocardial infarction)
• respiratory (pneumonia)
• SSI: surgical site infections-superficial and deep incisional and organ/space SSIs
• UTI: urinary tract infection

As a participant, NYGH is required to track inpatient and surgical outcomes and to use the results to continuously improve patient safety and surgical care. NYGH’s participation also makes the multi-site hospital an ACS Surgical Quality Partner to reflect our dedication to consistently improve procedures and approaches while maintaining a critical eye on process at every step. Patients can trust NYGH is dedicated to quality and relentless self-improvement and is accredited by the ACS.

“Though the ACS NSQIP we can effectively gauge the quality of our surgical program and ensure patients receive exceptional care when they come through our doors,” says Dr. Peter Stotland, Interim Chief of Surgery and Program Co-Medical Director of Surgery at North York General Hospital. “Our surgery teams should be proud of being recognized for exceeding performance standards and delivering exceptional outcomes for our communities, year after year.”

More information about this ACS NSQIP can be found here.

North York General Hospital

NYGH is a leading community academic hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto that provides high-quality acute, ambulatory, and long-term care to approximately half a million people across seven sites in one of Toronto’s most diverse and rapidly growing areas. NYGH is also a provincial leader in wait times for cancer surgeries as recognized by Ontario Health and was ranked by Newsweek Magazine as Canada’s top community hospital for the past five years, and as one of the World’s Best Smart Hospitals 2023 for adopting advanced technologies for patient care.

American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP)

ACS NSQIP is the only nationally validated quality improvement program that measures and enhances the care of surgical patients. This program measures the actual surgical results 30 days postoperatively as well as risk adjusts patient characteristics to compensate for differences among patient populations and acuity levels.  The goal of ACS NSQIP is to reduce surgical morbidity (infection or illness related to a surgical procedure) and surgical mortality (death related to a surgical procedure) and to provide a firm foundation for surgeons to apply what is known as the “best scientific evidence” to the practice of surgery.  Furthermore, when adverse effects from surgical procedures are reduced and/or eliminated, a reduction in health care costs follows.  ACS NSQIP is a major program of the American College of Surgeons and is currently used in over 850 adult and pediatric hospitals.