Does hospital surgical volume impact surgical outcomes?
A scoping review of 403 studies found that 86.6% reported a statistically significant relationship between hospital surgical volume and outcomes, though results varied by surgery type.
The 403 included studies covered 90 types of surgery, 61 types of outcome, and 72 covariates or potential confounders. 191 (47.5%) studies focussed on oncological surgery and 37.8% focussed visceral or digestive tract surgery. Overall, 86.6% of the studies found a statistically significant volume-outcome relationship, although the findings differed from one type of surgery to another. Furthermore, the types of outcome and the covariates were highly diverse. The majority of studies were performed in Western countries, and oncological and visceral surgical procedures were over-represented; this might limit the generalizability and comparability of the studies' results.
Levaillant et al. (Sat,) studied this question.
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