TY - JOUR
T1 - Major inpatient surgeries and in-hospital mortality in New South Wales public hospitals in Australia
T2 - A state-wide retrospective cohort study
AU - Du, Wei
AU - Glasgow, Nicholas
AU - Smith, Paul
AU - Clements, Archie
AU - Sedrakyan, Art
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IJS Publishing Group Ltd
PY - 2018/2
Y1 - 2018/2
N2 - Background: Surgical interventions save lives and are important focus for health services research worldwide. Investigating variation in postoperative mortality may improve understanding of unwarranted variations and promote safety and quality in surgical care. We aimed to evaluate trends of in-hospital mortality rates among adult inpatients receiving major elective surgeries and determine the variation in mortality among New South Wales (NSW) public hospitals. Materials and methods: In this study, we used the all-inclusive population-based NSW Admitted Patient Data from July 2001 to June 2014. We retrospectively included adult patients aged 18+ years receiving Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) repair, Peripheral bypass, Colorectal surgeries, Joint replacement, Spinal surgeries, or Cardiac surgeries. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality for selected surgeries. Changes in mortality rates over time and hospital standardised mortality rates were modelled using multivariate logistic regression models adjusting for case-mix factors. Results: Over 13-year study period, the in-hospital mortality rates declined annually by 6.4% (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 4.3, 8.4) for Colorectal surgery by 5.7% (95%CI: 2.0, 9.3) for Joint replacement and by 4.2% (95%CI: 1.9, 6.4) for Cardiac surgery. After controlling for patient-level factors, little variation was observed among hospitals for in-hospital mortality. There was a greater variability for cardiac surgery compared with the other surgical groups but no outlier hospital was consistently associated with significantly higher than expected mortality rate. Conclusions: Mortality has declined for major surgeries in the past 15 years. There was some variation among hospitals regarding in-hospital mortality that was mostly explained by patients demographic and admission characteristics. Our findings are reassuring for patients and contribute to knowledge that can help further improve surgical care.
AB - Background: Surgical interventions save lives and are important focus for health services research worldwide. Investigating variation in postoperative mortality may improve understanding of unwarranted variations and promote safety and quality in surgical care. We aimed to evaluate trends of in-hospital mortality rates among adult inpatients receiving major elective surgeries and determine the variation in mortality among New South Wales (NSW) public hospitals. Materials and methods: In this study, we used the all-inclusive population-based NSW Admitted Patient Data from July 2001 to June 2014. We retrospectively included adult patients aged 18+ years receiving Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) repair, Peripheral bypass, Colorectal surgeries, Joint replacement, Spinal surgeries, or Cardiac surgeries. The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality for selected surgeries. Changes in mortality rates over time and hospital standardised mortality rates were modelled using multivariate logistic regression models adjusting for case-mix factors. Results: Over 13-year study period, the in-hospital mortality rates declined annually by 6.4% (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 4.3, 8.4) for Colorectal surgery by 5.7% (95%CI: 2.0, 9.3) for Joint replacement and by 4.2% (95%CI: 1.9, 6.4) for Cardiac surgery. After controlling for patient-level factors, little variation was observed among hospitals for in-hospital mortality. There was a greater variability for cardiac surgery compared with the other surgical groups but no outlier hospital was consistently associated with significantly higher than expected mortality rate. Conclusions: Mortality has declined for major surgeries in the past 15 years. There was some variation among hospitals regarding in-hospital mortality that was mostly explained by patients demographic and admission characteristics. Our findings are reassuring for patients and contribute to knowledge that can help further improve surgical care.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041604040&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijsu.2017.12.023
DO - 10.1016/j.ijsu.2017.12.023
M3 - Article
SN - 1743-9191
VL - 50
SP - 126
EP - 132
JO - International Journal of Surgery
JF - International Journal of Surgery
ER -