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AHSQC: Am Hernia Society Quality Collaborative
Attention to all hernia surgery patients:
Please note that the Americas Hernia Society (www.americasherniasociety.org) has taken on the initiative to improve the quality of hernia care to our patients, including reducing chronic pain. This is via the AHSQC (http://www.ahsqc.org). It is a multinational database that is focused on tracking outcomes specifically from hernia operations.
If your surgeon is a member of the AHS and is entering your hernia surgery data into the AHSQC, you should expect to receive periodic emails and/or phone calls to update on how you are doing. Please take the time to answer these questions and/or phone calls. It is very important to have your involvement in this quality collaborative.
If you seek a consultation for a hernia surgery, please make sure you ask your surgeon if he/she is an AHS member and also participates in the AHSQC. It is important to increase the collaboration from all surgeons, as it will only strengthen the quality collaborative and improve patient outcomes.
Thank you!!!
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6 Replies
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[USER=”2788″]dragonfly757[/USER] can you share more details on the original and followup procedure you had? Was this for an inguinal hernia? Was your pain relieved when you had the tacks removed?
As far as your question, some doctors are certainly aware of tacks causing pain in some patients, particularly if they press on a nerve or if too many of them are used making the repair excessively tight. I believe that is also why some surgeons use dissolvable tacks, or even glue, but I could be wrong.
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I’m looking for a way to spare other people the same problem I had – chronic abdominal pain for 7 years! Finally a surgeon was willing to look for the pain even though nothing showed on the CTs. He found 6 titanium surgical tacks clustered below my bottom left rib, and removed them as well as a few others that were visible. A flat screen xray showed that 18 tacks remain. My concern is for the doctors who get patients with chronic pain who have these tacks and they are not seen on a CT. How do we educate surgeons, internal medicine doctors, emergency room doctors, radiologists and others to look for these tacks?
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[USER=”1218″]Beenthere[/USER] just to clarify: the AHSQC is a quality collaborative. It’s sole purpose is to help surgeons gather their outcomes data from hernia surgery. Let’s encourage that more surgeons sign up to use this service.
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AHSQC: Am Hernia Society Quality Collaborative
This is what is scary about having no requirements to become a member except being a licensed Dr. and paying a due.
Again I ask that you read the book Unaccountable by Dr. Marty Makary.
When a patient comes to a Dr. who is a very unique position and the patient puts there life on the line with this person they meet for a short period of time. Trust is the only thing the patient has. If the Dr. and his staff are not truthful it leads to multiple problems.
If I come to you and we agree on a treatment plan and discuss if a resident going to be present and you state they are only going to act as a assistant but I later find out they performed the entire surgery, fraud was used to obtain my consent. Since most hernia surgeries are elective but highly recommended I could hold off on doing this surgery.
Again being a lay person I do not understand all the items that go in medical training but if I am going in for surgery I do not want someone that I have any knowledge of doing any part of the surgical procedure that I am having. This could be their first surgery ever for a resident and one mistake with a medical instrument could be life changing. Even with the best Dr. observing.
According to one surgeon I spoke with after my surgery ghost surgery was not uncommon at the hospital that did my original surgery and backed up by a couple of other licensed medical professionals, GHOST SURGERY does occur in the US for surgeries for both partial and entire procedures . Plus they are billed only as attending participated in the actual surgery.
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AHSQC: Am Hernia Society Quality Collaborative
Agree
Membership in AHS does not imply specialty in hernia. At the least, there is an interest in hernias. The reverse may not be true. I would question a hernia specialist who has not taken the initiative to be an active member of the AHS and also participate in the AHSQC.One clarification about residents and their role in the surgeon’s experience. Residents do not perform surgery on their own. They are under the direct supervision of an Attending surgeon. Having a resident participate in an operation does not in any way reduce the amount of skill or experience of the surgeon. Quite the opposite.
The surgeon must be present and typically scrubbed in for the important part of the operation. Allowing residents to participate in one’s operation takes a lot of skill on the part surgeon.
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AHSQC: Am Hernia Society Quality Collaborative
This might not be the right place for this but my hospital that did my first hernia surgery is participating it the survey, my surgery and care was before the survey started. Came I get involved?
Second part which is a major concern for others to find a surgeon, is what qualification does it take to become a Americas Hernia Society member?
I did some cross checking and found it to be very interesting. I entered in my city on the AHS website and all the doctors that came up in my area were from the hospital that I had my first surgery done at. According to their website they do around 500 hernia surgeries per year with 11 doctors listed. Meaning around 50 per year per doctor. On their website from a few years ago they had an exit survey that the graduating residents filled out the survey that stated up to 90% of the surgeries were done by the residents. That would bring the actual number down below 10 hernia surgeries per year per doctor. Also from this hospital, they did a study that found 25% of their hernia patients had post hernia pain after one year between 2009-2010 and according to other doctors at their facility it was ongoing until 2012.
I than looked up each ones bio and found most had graduated in the last 3-6 years(very little experience). Not one listed hernia as a major aspect of their surgical interest, research or practice. I believe I also know which doctor on the staff is their director and he does not even state this on his bio. I than looked up the bios on Towfigh, Ramshaw, Yunis and Goodyear, what an interesting contrast. Their websites shows that they are really specialists in hernia surgeries. One Dr. stated he does around 650 hernia surgeries a year. How many has Dr. Goodyear done-15K plus?
Be very careful when selecting a specialist. Paying a yearly due to join a Society does not mean the doctor is a specialist. I also found in Dr Towfigh’s bio her CV. Never heard of that before but all doctors should provide this, I found it very interesting and informative.
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