Best practices for managing surgical services: the role of coordination.

Growing evidence exists that patient outcomes are related to how effectively health care organizations coordinate work responsibilities among their staffs. However, information is lacking on actual practices that can be used to achieve effective coordination. This article reports on a National Veterans Affairs Surgical Risk Study, in which the authors studied the coordination practices of 20 surgical services that, based on risk-adjusted mortality and morbidity rates, occupied different ends of the patient outcomes continuum.