ABSTRACT
The process of managing surgical patients provides numerous opportunities to improve communication and, ultimately, patient outcome. Emphasis has been placed on improving team-work among surgeons and ancillary staff to optimize the process of surgical patient care. Despite every precaution taken by the surgeon, patients may develop complications due to inherent characteristics brought to the table by the patients themselves. Numerous mechanisms have evolved to measure variability. The first and certainly most noteworthy is the measurement of variance through systematic assessment of surgical quality. One means of measuring variability is by ranking hospitals based on surgical mortality. Surgical Care Improvement Project remains the mainstay metric used to assess surgical quality across healthcare providers. However, modifications and additions to the various measures mentioned earlier must occur in time to appropriately deal with the growing resistance to antibiotics. The structure and process through which patient care is administered can continuously be optimized to produce the best patient outcomes.
