Key result
In-hospital mortality for major elective surgeries declined annually over 13 years, including by 6.4% for colorectal, 5.7% for joint replacement, and 4.2% for cardiac surgery.
Cohort
Yes
In-hospital mortality for major elective surgeries, including cardiac procedures, has significantly declined over a 13-year period in New South Wales public hospitals, with minimal unwarranted variation between hospitals.
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.
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Du et al. (2017) conducted a cohort in Major elective surgeries. Major elective surgeries was evaluated on In-hospital mortality. In-hospital mortality for major elective surgeries declined annually over 13 years, including by 6.4% for colorectal, 5.7% for joint replacement, and 4.2% for cardiac surgery.
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