ASDSA, Northwestern University Introduce Cutaneous Procedures Adverse Events Reporting (CAPER) System

This voluntary reporting system gathers patients’ adverse events encountered during dermatologic surgery procedures.

The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery Association (ASDSA) and the Northwestern University Department of Dermatology are launching the Cutaneous Procedures Adverse Events Reporting (CAPER) system.

This voluntary reporting system gathers patients’ adverse events (AEs) encountered during dermatologic surgery procedures. CAPER will help with safety monitoring for the specialty; identify practice and/or education gaps associated with adverse events; and identify any potential risk factors for adverse events.

CAPER will be overseen by a group of board-certified dermatologists, clinicians and researchers with more than 20 years of experience in patient care and physician advocacy who are committed to improving safety outcomes. 

“I’m incredibly excited to have CAPER up and running,” says Murad Alam, MD, MBA, Vice Chair of the Northwestern University Department of Dermatology and past ASDSA President, in a news release. “Having access to information to not only potentially improve patient safety, but also assess and affirm the presumed high-level of safety of dermatologic surgery, is very exciting.”

Access to this de-identified data can result in the dissemination of trends related to adverse incidents and result in making patients safer.

“Establishing a data repository for dermatologic surgery, both cosmetic- and skin cancer-related, will be crucial in advancing our field and helping our patients,” adds current ASDSA President Mathew Avram, MD, JD.

ASDSA members, their staff and health care personnel who have dermatologic surgery-related AEs to report can find more information at www.caper.net.