The 2024 Leapfrog Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Survey opens April 1. This free, annual survey assesses the safety and quality of ASCs based on national, evidence-based measures that are aligned with other organizations (including CMS and national accreditation agencies). Leapfrog Survey Results are publicly reported on a free website.

The Survey’s national standards are aimed at protecting patients from preventable harm by including hand hygiene, the implementation of a safe surgery checklist, and surgical site infection surveillance.

Currently, 100% of eligible New Jersey hospitals, including their Hospital Outpatient Departments (HOPD), participate in the Leapfrog Hospital Survey. Yet in 2023, only five out of over 180 ASCs in New Jersey participated in Leapfrog’s annual ASC Survey.

This is a problem for patients and employer purchasers trying to make prudent health care decisions. Today more than 60 percent of surgeries are performed in ASCs or HOPDs. Yet consumers have little information on the safety and quality of ASCs and that information is not easy to find or use in a meaningful way when determining where to schedule a procedure.

At the Quality Institute, we have long called for greater transparency and data on the safety of New Jersey’s ASCs. In today’s Quality Institute press release, New Jersey’s Health Commissioner Kaitlin Baston, M.D., joined our call for ASCs to report to Leapfrog, stating, “There is tremendous value for New Jersey residents having access to greater information about safety measures at ambulatory surgery center facilities, such as medication safety and whether a facility tracks and reports accidents and infections. This data provides the necessary transparency on safety information that is crucial to making informed health-related decisions and to spearheading quality improvement.”

We ask policy makers, public health leaders, patient advocates, health plans, unions, employer purchasers, and consumers to join our call for ASCs to report. Last year several health plans supported us in this effort. And, health plans and large hospital systems that jointly own ASCs also have a responsibility to advance patient safety by ensuring that their ASC partners report on the ASC survey.

Ultimately, people seeking care deserve more information about the safety of all health care facilities — including ASCs. A voluntary approach worked for hospitals. We hope the same will be true for ASCs.