What Is the CCSC
By: Michael Baumann | July 27, 2012
The Critical Care Societies Collaborative (CCSC) is a partnership of the four major professional and scientific societies whose members care for critically ill patients in America. The American College of Chest Physicians(ACCP), the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), the American Thoracic Society (ATS), and the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) constitute the four societies of the CCSC and have collaborated since 2000 on many issues. Past successes include joint statements to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Congress, and/or the President on various issues of interest, including interpretive guidelines on anesthetic use in hospital procedures and physician reimbursement for end-of-life counseling. The CCSC has partnered with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for a national awards program for innovative approaches to reducing health-care-associated infections (HAI), developed a task force to coordinate responses to the National Quality Forum (NQF) to vet existing and recommended new critical care performance measures, and issued a statement on the value of telemedicine on improving the quality and safety of critical care delivery.
Most recently, the CCSC partnered with HHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to assess the definition of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and developed a new working surveillance definition and approach focusing on ventilator-associated events (VAE).
Also recently, the leaderships of the CCSC met on July 19 to critically assess past successes and future collaborative opportunities. Although competing as professional societies on several fronts, common ground and interests were reaffirmed and future potential collaborative directions explored. Future CCSC projects include continued support of the HAI awards in partnership with HHS, strategic presentations of areas of common clinical interest at our national meetings (including a session on VAE at CHEST 2012 this fall), and participating in the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s “Choosing Wisely Campaign” to assess potential common clinical practices in critical care medicine having a strong evidence base for not being pursued. Also, a long-range plan on defining desired competencies and how to measure these competencies (vs time-based training goals) for critical care trainees will be explored. Yes, a large task list but one that could not be pursued without the collaboration afforded by the CCSC.
Learn more about the ACCP presidents.