Defining, Tracking, and Delivering Excellence in Surgical Care

News, Articles, and other Talk about SCOAP

SCOAP Updates

The SCOAP Community Speaks Up

SCOAP Medical Director Dr. David R. Flum has written a few columns that will be appearing in the monthly newsletter to SCOAP supporters, but you can view them first right here on our website!

In these columns, Dr. Flum answers questions that have come up from members of our community by referencing articles or abstracts that help to provide more information:

Do you or your colleagues have a question YOU would like to see answered here and in the SCOAP newsletter? Just send us an e-mail...

Why are we focusing on 12 negative lymph nodes in patients with colon cancer given the recent evidence?

In patients undergoing colon cancer who do not have obvious advanced disease (metastatic or obvious local invasion) the determination of whether they get life-extending postoperative chemotherapy is often based on whether or not there is evidence of micro-metastatic disease in the lymph node (LN) bearing tissue (mesentery) that is removed with the colon specimen. Whether or not enough negative lymph nodes (revealing no metastatic disease) has been evaluated depends on several factors. The risk of a false negative assessment of the lymph nodes decreases as the number of sampled lymph nodes increases. There is nothing magic about the number 12, but multiple studies have found that when at least 12 negative lymph nodes are removed more evidence of metastases is found and therefore more patients might properly get life extending chemotherapy.

Visit our "Community Speaks Up" page to read the entire column and/or for more answers to questions like these...

SCOAP in the News

The Seattle Times Editorial Board thinks Checklists are a good idea, too.

SCOAP Medical Director, David Flum, spoke briefly with radio station, KPLU

Dr. Flum also spoke with The Washington Post

And Dr. Patch Dellinger, Chair of SCOAP's Safer Surgery Checklist Coalition, spoke with ABC News

"Why are you writing on me?" a patient recently asked her doctor during pre-op prep

SCOAP is "also relevant for a rural surgeon is a small community" says Ocean Beach Hospital in this article by The Daily Astorian.

"We got involved with SCOAP to make sure that when you walk into any hospital in Washington, you will get the same care no matter what," said Dr. Steven Cabrales, chief medical officer at St. John Medical Center in Longview in this article by The Daily News Online.

Implementing surgical checklists in the operating room is so important that even Hollywood is helping to spread the message, as portrayed in a recent episode of the hit NBC show ER!

General Surgery News wrote about a study Dr. Flum presented at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Surgical Association, held in New York City. "This study demonstrated a significant reduction in negative appendectomies at participating hospitals contemporaneous to increased use and perhaps the increasing accuracy of preoperative diagnostic imaging," said Flum, the study’s lead author.

Another writer blogged about surgical checklists

Back in 2007, the Puget Sound Business Journal was one of the first media outlets to write about SCOAP

World Health Organization (WHO) Launch of Safe Surgery Saves Lives Global Initiative Coincides with SCOAP Research

Visit the WHO website to learn more about their Safe Surgery Saves Lives Challenge which launched last June.

Governor Christine Gregoire champions better healthcare through her support of SCOAP.

SCOAP’s 1st Annual Meeting was held on June 15th, 2008. Governor Christine Gregoire opened the meeting with a video greeting in which she acknowledged the innovative patient safety approach being taken by SCOAP participating hospitals. Governor Gregoire expressed her hope that SCOAP would soon be in all hospitals across Washington State so that all citizens would have equal access to appropriate and quality care.

The Annual Meeting was designed to highlight the collaborative approach taken by SCOAP with most of the day taken up by work groups discussing ways to move SCOAP to the next level and “Scoap out the future together”.

The resulting discussions illustrated how SCOAP has energized the participating healthcare professionals and engaged the surgeons in the QI process. One of the senior data abstractors described a scene where “for the first time in 16 years, a surgeon came into my office to ask to see his charts to better understand his SCOAP performance and how to improve”!

SCOAP was the largest grantee of the Governor’s Life Sciences Discovery Fund which was set up to promote innovative life sciences research, receiving $1.3 million in funding awarded in January 2008. This grant will be used to expand the scope of SCOAP so that all citizens in Washington State can receive safer, more effective and less costly surgical care.