About the ACS Risk Calculator

The goal of the ACS NSQIP risk calculator is to provide accurate, patient-specific risk information to guide both surgical decision-making and informed consent. The risk calculator uses patient predictors (e.g., age, ASA class, BMI, Hypertension requiring medication) and the planned procedure (CPT code) to predict the chance that patients will have any of 19 different outcomes within 30-days following surgery. The outcomes include:

  • Serious complication (cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, pneumonia, progressive renal insufficiency, acute renal failure, PE, venous thrombosis, return to the operating room, deep incisional SSI, organ space SSI, systemic sepsis, unplanned intubation, UTI, wound disruption)
  • Any complication (superficial incisional SSI, deep incisional SSI, organ space SSI, wound disruption, pneumonia, unplanned intubation, ventilator > 48 hours, progressive renal insufficiency, acute renal failure, PE, venous thrombosis, UTI, stroke, cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, return to the operating room, systemic sepsis)
  • Pneumonia
  • Cardiac Complication (cardiac arrest or MI)
  • Surgical Site Infection (SSI)
  • Urinary Tract Infection (UTI)
  • Venous Thromboembolism (venous thrombosis or PE)
  • Renal Failure (progressive renal insufficiency or acute renal failure)
  • Colectomy Ileus (Conditionally displayed based on the selected Procedure)
  • Colectomy Anastomotic Leak (Conditionally displayed based on the selected Procedure)
  • Unplanned Readmission
  • Unplanned Return to OR
  • Death
  • Discharge to Nursing or Rehab Facility
  • Systemic Sepsis (sepsis or systemic shock)
  • Predicted Length of Hospital Stay
  • Vascular LEO Wound Infection/Complication
  • Pancreatectomy Delayed Gastric Emptying
  • Proctectomy Ileus

The risk calculator was built using data collected from over 5.0 million operations from 874 hospitals participating in ACS NSQIP from 2016-20. Entering the most complete and accurate patient information will provide the most precise risk information. However, the estimates can still be calculated if some of the patient information is unknown.