American Surgical Collaborative and Trial (ASCoT) Group

ASCoT is a national dissemination and implementation network that aims to close the gap between discovery and practice change. It is a group of surgical quality of care collaboratives from across the nation working together to spread best practices, research findings, and success in surgical collaborative activities.

ASCoT’s mission is to “spread knowledge and know-how about surgical collaboratives and to change practice to improve the quality of surgery." ASCoT-supported research is more likely to be taken up by surgeons and systems in the general community, making the national spread of research findings more likely.

CERTAIN is a founding member of ASCoT with current members including collaboratives from Tennessee, Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Washington and Northern New York representing over 4,000 surgeons who serve about 30 million people each year. ASCoT is supported by the American College of Surgeons and the Surgical Outcomes Club.

Each ASCoT member group has a unique focus in surgical care delivery with complimentary interests in knowledge translation to improve quality. All ASCoT members rely on a data surveillance platform that includes risk-adjusted outcome measures and a feedback mechanism to clinicians and systems that drives practice change. Several of the ASCoT members perform research on known process of care measures or test novel metrics aimed at improving care. ASCoT works to disseminate findings from this research, test for reproducibility and work on implementation activities at the community level. ASCoT members also serve on advisory boards, Data Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMB), and sometimes as sites for multicenter research.

ASCoT members meet regularly, spread findings through statewide webinars and communication activities, and support each other in research and quality improvement (QI) activities. A white paper written by ASCoT members for the American College of Surgeons highlights the opportunity and success of this type of collaboration.