By Rajiv K. Sethi, Aditya V. Karhade, Michael G. Glenn and Gary S. Kaplan— Until the Covid-19 pandemic struck, surgical patients in the U.S. had been increasingly traveling to designated Centers of Excellence, health systems that met stringent criteria for providing exceptional, high-value care for specific procedures such as knee replacement and spinal surgery. In some cases, large employers such as Walmart entered into contracts with the COE providers to care for their employees, whose travel to the specified provider for evaluation Read More...

Less than 2 weeks before the 5th Annual Safety in Spine Surgery Summit on March 13, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital received its first COVID patient. These were the early days of an unprecedented strain on the city’s healthcare system. NYC is still fighting a hard battle every day and continues to rise to the challenge. Despite taking the necessary step to cancel the live Safety Summit in March, we were still committed to providing top-tier educational resources to the spine surgery community. Read More...

Save the date for the 5th Annual Safety in Spine Surgery Summit: April 13, 2020 in New York City. Friday, March 13, 2020 Location: The Heart Conference Center / New York-Presbyterian Hospital, 173 Fort Washington Avenue, New York, NY 10032 Chair: Michael G. Vitale, MD, MPH Co-chairs: John M. Flynn, MD Roger Härtl, MD Rajiv K. Sethi, MD An ESSENTIAL program for: Spine surgeons Surgical spine team members Hospital execs responsible for patient safety Registration details will be posted on the Event's Read More...

View the videos from presenters at the 4th Annual Safety in Spine Surgery Summit. Learn insights and practical techniques for improvement of safety in spine surgery from experts in the medical field as well as other fields. Click here to view Read More...

Hear what leaders in the spine industry have to say about the Safety in Spine Surgery Summit. Michael Vitale, MD, MPH, Chief of Pediatric Orthopedics and Pediatric Spine Surgery at the Columbia University Medical Center, shares the motivation behind the S3P meeting. In addition, Drs. Sethi and Lenke explain what makes the Summit so unique. Learn why it is an essential meeting for spine surgeons, surgical spine team members, hospital execs responsible for patient safety, and more. Watch the video below. "This Read More...

We are excited to be convening the 4th Annual Safety in Spine Surgery Summit on April 26, 2019 in New York City, NY! In addition to the fantastic roster of speakers, we look forward to sharing the following: Latest in Best Practices for Safety in Spine Surgery Using tools to reduce variability and improve predictability of achieving positive outcomes Discussing the importance of safety on the macroeconomic level Designing Talent, culture and team to achieve best outcomes Protecting surgeons Read More...

Dr. Michael Vitale on 3rd spine surgery safety summit: "The appetite for information regarding safety in spine surgery is seemingly endless." Excerpt from Becker's Spine Review | Written by Megan Wood | May 14, 2018 Back in 2012, Michael Vitale, MD, chief of pediatric spine and scoliosis surgery at New York City-based NewYork Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Orthopedics, realized that there was a great opportunity to improve the safety of spine surgery. To call attention to the topic, he collaborated with 24 national experts Read More...

The Safety in Spine Surgery project was thrilled to have hosted the 3rd Annual Safety in Spine Surgery Summit on Friday, April 20, 2018 at NewYork-Presbyterian Read More...

Surgical site infections (SSI) following spine instrumentation surgery is associated with increased morbidity and healthcare costs. Despite the development of consensus-based best practices to prevent surgical site infection, there is still considerable variation in minimizing modifiable risk factors. The payment approach known as “pay-for-performance” (P4P) has gained traction as a strategy for promoting quality improvement (QI) by rewarding clinicians who meet performance expectations with respect to health care Read More...

Without doubt, the impact of complications like surgical site infection (SSI) can have a tremendous burden on patients, their families, surgeons, hospitals, and society as a whole. As with most complications in healthcare, SSI should be thought of as the result of a combination of host, technique, systems and culture challenges. When multiple defects accumulate, SSI overwhelms the various countermeasures and a clinical infection ensures. When the defects all align, it allows for these factors to allow passage through the Read More...