Implementation of Measures to Improve SCIP Perioperative Beta-Blocker Compliance Quality and Financial Implications

The Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) was launched in 2005. One of the SCIP metrics includes perioperative beta-blocker guideline (CARD-2), which measures the percentage of patients on a pre-operative beta-blocker with continued use in the perioperative period. Compliance is intended to decrease rates of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and cardiac mortality among high-risk patients. We desired to create low cost, standardized processes on an institutional level to improve compliance with the SCIP CARD-2 metric. We assessed the impact of interventions on provider compliance with the SCIP CARD-2 metric and on simulated impact on institutional cost. We were able to improve CARD-2 compliance at one hospital within a year of intervention implementation. The hospital decreased its losses due to noncompliance in FY 2014 by $27 273. A relatively low cost intervention, aimed at educating providers that utilized existing infrastructure resulted in improved SCIP beta-blocker compliance. Changes in the reimbursement system made at the time of publication demonstrate that reimbursement measures are constantly in flux; tailored interventions based upon our successes may still produce similar results.