Value in acute care surgery, part 4: The economic value of an acute care surgery service to a hospital system.

The Healthcare Economics Committee of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma has published a series of three articles on the topic of value in acute care surgery (ACS). In this series, the key elements of value, cost and outcomes, and the impact of stakeholder perspective on what constitutes high-value care are discussed. The fourth article in this series continues the discussion by focusing on the unique economic value that an ACS service brings to a hospital system and its patients. Characterized by the immediate 24-hour availability of surgeons trained in trauma management, emergency general surgery, and surgical critical care, acute care surgeons extend the benefits of surgical rescue and critical care to all hospitalized patients. As such, an ACS service acts as a vital part of a hospital's infrastructure to successfully care for complex and seriously ill patients, in addition to enabling the establishment of other, high revenue-generating services such as vascular, transplant, and complex oncologic surgery programs. The trauma service acts as intake for patients that lead to downstream revenue creation by other disciplines such as orthopedic and neurological surgery, while trauma center designation itself results in dedicated state funding to ensure trauma readiness in many states in the United States. The traditional "value equation" in health care of outcomes achieved per dollar spent is ill-suited to capture many of these unique aspects and benefits of ACS. This article provides the background to understand the economic value of an ACS service and future directions toward improving overall value of care.