Dive Brief:
- Surgeon-led mortality reviews resulted in improved outcomes post-surgery, including mortality rates, according to a study published in the Journal of American College of Surgeons.
- To conduct the study, researchers from the Department of Surgery at the University of Alabama looked at data for 11,899 patients, examining mortality rates, patient safety indicators and hospital acquired conditions; every month, one surgeon from each service in the University HealthSystem Consortium led a review of all incidents, discussing such factors as observed-to- expected ratios and relative rankings before and after reviews were implemented.
- The researchers found that postoperative mortality ranking improved from 109 of 118 in the third quarter of 2012 to 47 of 119 in the third quarter of 2013.
Dive Insight:
These researchers seem to of found a fruitful way to reduce postoperative mortality. Now, the question is whether these results can be reproduced other institutions. However, even if these results aren't matched by experiments at other organizations, it's still good to see that there's a way some of them can reduce needless postsurgical deaths.