The following was written by the New Jersey Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers.
Focusing on a recent daily newspaper article, the New Jersey Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers (NJAASC) has cited misinformation as a potentially serious risk to patients.
The article in question appeared on Thursday, May 19, in The Record — which covers Bergen County, NJ — under the headline "NJ clinic errors 'alarming.'" The approximately 1,500-word piece discusses select findings from a report issued earlier this year by the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, based on surgery center inspections conducted during 2009 and 2010.
"Misinformation of the sort contained in this newspaper story can be dangerous to patients seeking the most effective medical care," explains Larry Trenk, NJAASC president, who was interviewed for and quoted in The Record article. "There's information in this article that's misleading, and there are other details that are inaccurate. If taken as fact, what The Record reports could actually steer individuals away from particular surgical centers that might be their best treatment option."
Specifically, the association's concerns include the following points:
- The Record piece gives the impression that by not qualifying as "licensed," certain surgery centers are somehow skirting regulatory oversight. In fact, the distinction between licensed and unlicensed centers is based on current New Jersey law — and at this point one-room centers actually cannot be licensed. It's a legislative matter the NJAASC is working to address, and the association would certainly welcome more frequent inspections. Overall, it's important to note that all surgery centers, hospitals, physicians, and healthcare providers in the state operate within a rigid regulatory environment.
- While any violation is important and must be immediately addressed, most of those cited in the Health Care Quality Institute's report were incidental infractions and, in any case, the vast majority of all violations were corrected promptly. The centers where they occurred then passed subsequent re-inspections. Not only does the article neglect to reference resolution of deficiencies, it also fails to make the obvious point that even the nation's finest hospitals are not error-free and are sometimes cited for infractions.
- Also on the subject of citations, the article doesn't mention that in almost all cases, there were no resultant injuries, infections, or adverse outcomes of any sort. Again, it's important to understand that, for the most part, problems were quickly corrected and the centers involved passed on re-inspection.
"I'd submit that within the healthcare continuum, almost everyone agrees that ambulatory surgery centers have an important role to play," Mr. Trenk says. "As an industry, we take this role very seriously, and we are actively, vigorously engaged in working to address areas of concern and to upgrade standards across the board."
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Learn more about the New Jersey Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers.
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