Defining, Tracking, and Delivering Excellence in Surgical Care

Welcome!

Welcome to the website of the Surgical Care and Ouctomes Assessment Program (SCOAP), where hospitals from across Washington state are participating in a Surgical Checklist Initiative to reduce patient deaths and complications from surgeries, and many are releasing performance data to the public on selected surgical procedures performed on patients!

SCOAP is:

A model of collaboration in which Washington State's surgical community, in partnership with key stakeholders, can work together toward a common goal—improving patient care and health outcomes.
Healthcare professionals defining quality metrics, tracking hospital performance, and reducing errors and variability in surgical care.
A voluntary program for hospitals to discover widespread opportunities for quality improvement and cost savings for common surgical procedures performed across the state.
Helping surgeons and nurses deliver the highest quality of service by collecting information about the care patients receive and benchmarking it against standards.

SCOAP is a Washington State-approved Coordinated Quality Improvement Program (CQIP). This status provides exemption from disclosure for information and documents specifically created and collected for, and maintained by, an approved program; in this case, SCOAP is operated under the auspices of the Foundation for Health Care Quality a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation.

"What's relevant in a big hospital in a big city is also relevant for a rural surgeon in a small community." -- Dr. David Friedman

"As one of [SCOAP Medical Director Dr. David Flum's] patients, it was especially interesting to read your quotes in the editorial section of the Seattle Times. I support wholeheartedly the initiative on the part of doctors and nurses to take steps on their own to improve the medical services. This type of action will help instill faith in the medical profession by the general public. This type of action and admission of past errors reassures me that you are trying to improve the profession. More self discipline form the profession would certainly make me feel more like supporting legislation to reduce liabiltiy [awards] for malpractice."

"We are top ranked in our surgical performance measures," says Dr. Eleen Kirman, LCR’s Medical Director of Surgical Services. "SCOAP will allow us to benchmark our performance so our patients can compare our outcomes with other hospitals. We volunteered to participate in the SCOAP program because we want our patients to have full transparency on our surgical outcomes."