Quality Improvement in Cardiac Surgery: January 30, 2013, Los Angeles, CA

Abstract

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION (TR): I am pleased to call to order our second Experts Roundtable for the new edition of Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. We are privileged to again have internationally recognized experts and luminaries for our selected area of discussion—Quality Improvement in Cardiac Surgery. As with our previous seminar, I am confident that the authorities that we are fortunate to have brought here today will enlighten our readers with their most candid thoughts and opinions on this subject of discussion. I fully expect that this discussion will yield a unique, authoritative, and enlightening perspective on opportunities and challenges to quality improvement in cardiac surgery. I suspect we and our readers will likely (and hopefully) end both with more answers and more questions about this subject matter than we started with. With that provocative challenge, I am pleased to introduce our moderator today, Dr. Jeff Rich, who was kind enough to chair this session despite his great responsibilities as our current president of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. DR. RICH: Obviously quality improvement in cardiac surgery is a high priority for the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Today we have with us the leaders in our Society for that, Dr. Fred Grover, Dr. Alan Speir, and Dr. Rich Prager (Figure). Each represents a unique perspective on this. Dr. Grover has throughout his career proposed