Chickasaw Nation Medical Center surgery team ranked in top 10% in hospital initiative

The Chickasaw Nation Department of Health’s Ada Medical Center surgery team has been recognized for achieving meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care in 2023.

Chickasaw Nation Medical Center is one of 77 out of 600 hospitals to be commended by the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) for doing so.

Dr. Charles Grim, Secretary of Health for the Chickasaw Nation, said earning this honor was a team effort.

“It speaks highly of our staff in a lot of areas to be ranked against all other hospitals in the country that are participating in this improvement initiative and come out in the top 10%,” Grim said.

“We are very proud of the people involved. I appreciate them for what they do every day to take care of our people. They don’t do it expecting awards, but when your care gets better and better, you sometimes start getting those awards,” he said.

Grim said not every hospital puts itself in the position of asking for the close surgical care scrutiny required in earning an ACS NSQIP commendation.

“This is voluntary. I think it is important to point that out,” he said. “We don’t have to do this, and a lot of hospitals do not. What we are doing is allowing our care to be transparent in all our outcomes and letting ACS NSQIP compare us against all the other hospitals in the nation that participate. I think that our administration, leadership and surgical team’s willingness to do this demonstrates our commitment to quality.”

ACS NSQIP-participating hospitals are required to track outcomes of inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures. Outcomes are then analyzed by the American College of Surgeons and reported back to hospitals.

These results inform patient safety initiatives within the hospital and impact the quality of surgical care.

Grim said the award points to more than just the efforts of those in the operating room.

“There are a lot of staff, not just the surgeons, nurses and scrub techs. There is an entire team of people, including anesthesiologists, CRNAs, nursing staff, engineering, environmental, infection prevention, quality teams, people who clean the facilities in the OR, central sterilization and others.”

Important, too, is the medical center’s team charged with keeping track of the metrics involved in charting progress.

“We reviewed 1,100 cases in 2024. We have staff assigned who take the time to get all the data in a format that NSQIP requires. We have internal dashboards and scorecards to help us track the data and keep a very close eye on them. The data is reported to all the people involved. If we start having issues in one area, we can look close to find out what is going on,” Grim said.

“We commend all ACS NSQIP-participating hospitals because they have committed to using high-quality data to improve the surgical care of their patients,” said Clifford Y. Ko, M.D., M.S., MSHS, FACS, FASCRS, director of the ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care.

“The Meritorious hospitals go a step further – not only do they use the data effectively, they also have the results to prove they are achieving optimal patient outcomes,” Ko said.

The recognition program commends CNDH for achieving a meritorious composite score in the “All Cases” category. Outcomes in eight clinical areas were evaluated, as follows:

Mortality, cardiac (cardiac arrest ad myocardial infarction), pneumonia, unplanned intubation, ventilator (48 hours), renal failure, surgical site infection (superficial incisional SSI, deep incisional SSI, organ/space SSI) and urinary tract infection.

To be eligible, CNDH submitted at least one case in each of the 2021, 2022 and 2023 calendar years, though only performance in calendar year 2023 was evaluated for the 2023 Meritorious list.

Grim said Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby’s support has been invaluable in helping the Chickasaw Nation Department of Health be successful.

“Governor Anoatubby has created a great organizational culture here at the Chickasaw Nation. We at the department of health have built upon the organizational structure to improve the quality of care we are providing across our whole system.

“Governor Anoatubby’s support for this health system since I’ve been here is unwavering. He wants to see us continue to improve and provide higher quality of care and more services care, and more care, for our population.

“We appreciate his support in all the things we do,” he said.