Interview with Carol J. Peden, MB ChB

Why did you feel that it was important to publish a book on quality improvement in the perioperative setting? What does Perioperative Quality Improvement add to the field?  

Care of the surgical patient is complex and involves surgeons and anesthesiologists, nurses, and the wider multidisciplinary team. Patients are ageing and the procedures we can deliver are more and more challenging. Successful surgical outcomes depend not only on expert clinicians, but on all the components of the system working together to deliver safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, and equitable care. I wanted to share my learnings, and those of my co-editors, Lee Fleisher and Michael Englesbe, on how to study, optimize, and deliver great care across the surgical continuum. 

What is the most exciting aspect of Perioperative Quality Improvement? What chapter or topic covered are you most excited about?  

I love the fact that we have input from a wide range of clinicians from across the world. I also like the fact that we started with a background of stating the problems and opportunities, moved on to tools and techniques that can be used, and then illustrated the improvement approach with case studies. I wanted to keep the book practical, so we aimed to have short chapters with key references and diagrams. I wanted a clinician to be able to pick up the book between cases in the OR and learn something quickly within the span of a brief chapter. 

Who will find the greatest value from this book?  

I hope many different people will find it valuable, including healthcare administrators, improvement teams, and, of course, perioperative clinicians. 

What new ideas, practices, or procedures do you hope your readers take away from your text?  

I hope readers will find this text a resource that provides quick and easy ideas about how to do improvement work with a scientific, but practical, approach. 

What problem do you hope the future generation of anesthesiologists, surgeons, nurses, and perioperative professionals will be able to solve?  

The Covid pandemic has highlighted the pressures clinical staff is under. In my experience, learning how to understand the system you work in and improve key areas, not only helps the patient experience but creates “joy at work” for staff. 

Is there anything else about the book you’d like to say?  

I hope, of course, this book helps more patients to have successful outcomes, but it will also help clinicians understand the system they work in better and provide the tools and techniques to diagnose problems in their system and then apply scientific improvement principles to make positive change happen. 

About the Editor 

Hi, my name is Carol Peden. I hold Adjunct positions as a Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California in the US. In the UK, I am a Senior Associate Tutor at the University of Oxford where I am Faculty on the Masters in Surgical Science Program and a Visiting Professor at the University of Bath Business School Centre for Health Innovation and Improvement. I currently live in Chicago and am an Executive Medical Director for Clinical Quality for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association which represents a federation of Blue Insurance plans covering care for 1 in 3 Americans. I have deep experience in clinical quality improvement and have worked on projects around the world. I am a Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. 

Purchase your copy of Perioperative Quality Improvement, 1st Edition here!