Danny Lascano1, Julia B Finkelstein2, LaMont J Barlow2, Daniel Kabat3, Arindam RoyChoudhury4, Jorge R Caso5, G Joel DeCastro2, William Gold3, James M McKiernan2. 1. Herbert Irving Cancer Center, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY. Electronic address: dl2178@columbia.edu. 2. Herbert Irving Cancer Center, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY. 3. Gold Health Strategies, Inc., New York, NY. 4. Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY. 5. Mount Sinai Miami Medical Center, Miami, FL.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether there is a correlation between publicized health ranking systems and surgical outcomes after radical cystectomy (RC) in New York State (NYS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System, data were collected in an aggregated fashion per hospital for the 20 hospitals with the highest RC volume in NYS from 2009 to 2012. Hospital characteristics were obtained from the publicly available sources such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Publicized ranking systems evaluated included the US News & World Health Report for Urology ranking (USHR), Healthgrades (HG) score, and Consumer Reports (CR) safety ranking. Outcomes measured included mortality, readmissions, and causes of readmissions. RESULTS: CR safety scores were inversely associated with overall death at 90 days after surgery (R = -0.527, P = .030), number of readmissions (R = -0.608, P = .030), and readmissions because of surgical complications (R = -0.523, P = .031) on a Pearson correlation test. On Kendall rank tau test, USHR and HG were not associated with any outcome of interest, although the scores correlated with increasing RC volume. CONCLUSION: In our analysis of 20 hospitals with the highest RC volume in NYS, USHR and HG scores were not strongly associated with any clinical outcome after RC. CR performed well in comparison with USHR and HG. Nevertheless, better metrics are needed to compare hospitals and to incorporate curative rates for morbid surgeries.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether there is a correlation between publicized health ranking systems and surgical outcomes after radical cystectomy (RC) in New York State (NYS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System, data were collected in an aggregated fashion per hospital for the 20 hospitals with the highest RC volume in NYS from 2009 to 2012. Hospital characteristics were obtained from the publicly available sources such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Publicized ranking systems evaluated included the US News & World Health Report for Urology ranking (USHR), Healthgrades (HG) score, and Consumer Reports (CR) safety ranking. Outcomes measured included mortality, readmissions, and causes of readmissions. RESULTS:CR safety scores were inversely associated with overall death at 90 days after surgery (R = -0.527, P = .030), number of readmissions (R = -0.608, P = .030), and readmissions because of surgical complications (R = -0.523, P = .031) on a Pearson correlation test. On Kendall rank tau test, USHR and HG were not associated with any outcome of interest, although the scores correlated with increasing RC volume. CONCLUSION: In our analysis of 20 hospitals with the highest RC volume in NYS, USHR and HG scores were not strongly associated with any clinical outcome after RC. CR performed well in comparison with USHR and HG. Nevertheless, better metrics are needed to compare hospitals and to incorporate curative rates for morbid surgeries.
Authors: Adrienne N Cobb; Taylor R Erickson; Anai N Kothari; Emanuel Eguia; Sarah A Brownlee; Weiwei Yao; Hyunyou Choi; Victoria Greenberg; Joy Mboya; Michael Voss; Daniela Stan Raicu; Raffaella Settimi-Woods; Paul C Kuo Journal: Surgery Date: 2018-05-24 Impact factor: 3.982