Why it matters? The quality of all endoscopic procedures is not equivalent. The guidelines below will help you understand the importance of having a high quality endoscopic procedure performed.
Guidelines for quality endoscopic procedures
- The provider performing your procedure should be Board Certified or Board eligible in gastroenterology.
- The facility where your endoscopic procedure is performed should be certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and at the State level. Also the facility should accredited by one of the national accreditation organizations such as the AAAHC.
- Our endoscopy centers are certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and accredited by the AAAHC.
- The provider performing your procedure should be able to discuss the number of times they have performed the procedure being performed. The provider should also be able to discuss their complication rates for the procedures performed and how they compare to the national complication rate.
- Our providers are willing and able to provide information regarding the quality of endoscopic procedures performed in our endoscopy centers. Our practice reports performance data pertaining to procedures performed in our endoscopy centers to a national repository which benchmarks our data compared with other endoscopic centers throughout the country. We continuously strive to exceed national established quality benchmarks for endoscopic safety and quality. We continuously evaluate our performance in order to continue to exceed national endoscopic quality benchmarks. Some of the key performance data measured in our centers is show below.
American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) has published quality indicators for optimal colonoscopy in order to achieve better outcomes.
The following are those identified measures and our performance rates:
Cecal Intubation Rate: This is the percentage of time the physician has completed the colonoscopy all the way through the colon. The most recent Cecum Intubation Rate for screening colonoscopies at our Centers is 99.5%
Adenoma Detection Rate: this is the percentage of time that at least one polyp is found during screening colonoscopies. When the rate falls below 20 percent the risk of colorectal cancer being diagnosed within the next five years goes up significantly. The current standard rate is at least 30% in men and 20% in women. Currently for the year 2015, the Adenoma Detection Rate at at our Centers is 51% for men and 39% for women.
Cecal Withdrawal Time: This is average it takes for the scope to be withdrawn after reaching the cecum. A higher Adenoma Detection Rate is related to longer withdrawal times. ASGE recommends a minimum of 6 minute average withdrawal time. We monitor this quarterly and consistently exceed the standard.