The Sprott Centre for Quality and Safety is a novel collaboration between the Sprott Department of Surgery and the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management at UHN. Sprott Centre strives to support the delivery of exceptional surgical care by empowering the interprofessional healthcare team and patients to participate in data-driven Quality Improvement initiatives.

What is the Sprott Centre?

To achieve The Sprott Surgery vision as World Leaders in Surgery, a dedicated Quality "Centre" with dedicated resources was needed and thus the Sprott Centre for Quality and Safety was born. 

The Sprott Centre for Quality and Safety is a quality program spanning across Sprott Surgery and the Department on Anesthesiology and Pain Management, with the intention of providing the best surgical care and patient experience. 

With an emphasis on data to drive quality improvement projects, the Centre is a hub of resources for all members of the healthcare team (after all, anyone can make a change) who maybe be interested in improving how we best care of our patients and ourselves. it is a place where the siloes of quality improvement efforts across different health professions can be broken down. Through this connection, a robust community of practice related to QI can be created where lessons can be shared (and most importantly, wins can be celebrated!). 

It is currently comprised of a team of Senior leadership, Surgical Clinical Reviewers (SCRs), Quality Improvement Specialists, and Physician Leads across the 13 divisions of Surgery and within the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management. The ultimate goal of this team is to support research and education in surgical QI and enable a culture of growth and accountability as we spread our improvement efforts across the two departments.

Together, we are all champions of change.

What do we do?

Data-Driven Approach:

• National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP): We engage in a national benchmarking program that uses data to drive our quality improvements. For more details, visit or NSQIP tab on our SharePoint. 
• Ontario Surgical Quality Improvement Network (ON-SQIN): Our active participation with ON-SQIN at the Ministry for Health, Ontario, underlines our commitment to enhancing surgical quality within the province.

Priority Setting and Action Planning:

• Ontario Surgical Quality Improvement Plan (ON-SQIP): We establish surgical priorities as an organization to Ontario Health to ensure accountability and strategic direction annually.
• ON-SQIP 2024-2025 Priorities:
  • Pneumonia: We are committed to improving pneumonia infection rates int he pre-, intra-, and post-operative phases. 
  • Transfusion: We are committed to applying patient blood management principles (PBM) to optimize the use and administration of blood transfusions.
  • Surgical Site Infections (SSI): We will continue to monitor the implementation of SSI bundles and their sustainability in reducing SSIs for our patients. 

Sprott Centre for Quality and Safety- Leadership

Dr. Thomas Forbes                                                         Diana Hallett                                           Dr. Keyvan Karkouti

Surgeon-in-chief                                                       Clinical Director                               Anesthesiologist-in-chief, UHN

Sprott Department of Surgery                    Sprott Department of Surgery

                                                                    Perfusion and Anesthesia Services

Dr. Tim Jackson                                               Alexandra Boasie MSc, MBA                         Dr. Tariq Esmail

Surgical Quality Lead                       Senior Manager, Transformation & Quality       Anesthesia Quality Lead