A validated value-based model to improve hospital-wide perioperative outcomes: adaptability to combined medical/surgical inpatient cohorts

A Randomized, Controlled Trial Evaluating Perioperative Risk-stratification and Risk-based, Protocol-driven Management After Elective Major Cancer Surgery

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the efficacy of risk-based, protocol-driven management versus usual management after elective major cancer surgery to reduce 30-day rates of postoperative death or serious complications (DSCs).

BACKGROUND

Major cancer surgery is associated with significant perioperative risks, which result in worse long-term outcomes.

METHODS

Adults scheduled for elective major cancer surgery were stratified/randomized to risk-based escalating levels of care, monitoring, and comanagement versus usual management. The primary study outcome was a 30-day rate of DSC. Additional outcomes included complications, adverse events, health care utilization, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and disease-free survival and overall survival.

RESULTS

Between August 2014 and June 2020, 1529 patients were enrolled and randomly allocated to the study arms; 738 patients in the intervention arm and 732 patients in the control arm were eligible for analysis. Thirty-day rate of DSC with the intervention was 15.0% (95% CI: 12.5%-17.6%) versus 14.1%, (95% CI: 11.6%-16.6%) with usual management ( P = 0.65). There were no differences in 30-day rates of complications or adverse events (including return to the operating room), postoperative length of stay, rate of discharge to home, or 30, 60, or 90-day HRQOL or rates of hospital readmission or receipt of antineoplastic therapy between the study arms. At a median follow-up of 48 months, overall survival ( P = 0.57) and disease-free survival ( P = 0.91) were similar.

CONCLUSIONS

Risk-based, protocol-driven management did not reduce the 30-day rate of DSC after elective major cancer surgery compared with usual management, nor did it improve postoperative health care utilization, HRQOL, or cancer outcomes. Trials are needed to identify cost-effective, tailored perioperative strategies to optimize outcomes after major cancer surgery.

Comparison of the clinical features in open and closed format intensive care units: A systematic review and meta-analysis

IMPORTANCE

The difference in clinical outcomes between closed and open designs of intensive care units (ICUs) is still an open question.

OBJECTIVE

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to compare total mortality, hospital and ICU length of stay (LOS) and mortality as primary outcomes, and severity of illness based on physiological variables, organ failure assessment, age, duration of mechanical ventilation and ventilator-associated pneumonia frequency as secondary outcomes in closed and open ICUs.

EVIDENCE REVIEW

Medline, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane database, Iran-doc and Elm-net according to the MeSH terms were searched from 1988 to October 2019. The standardised mean difference (SMD), relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were applied to display summary statistics of primary and secondary outcomes.

FINDINGS

A total of 90 studies with 444,042 participants were analysed. ICU mortality (RR: 1.16, CI: 1.07-1.27, p < 0.001), hospital mortality (RR: 1.12, CI: 1.03-1.22, p = 0.010) and ICU LOS (SMD: 0.43, CI: 0.01-0.85, p = 0.040) were significantly higher in open ICUs. Total mortality (RR: 0.91, CI: 0.77-1.08, p = 0.28) and hospital LOS (SMD: 1.14, CI: 1.31-3.59, p = 0.36) showed no significant difference between the two types of ICU. The secondary outcome measures were also comparable between the two ICU formats (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

The results demonstrated superiority of closed versus open ICUs in hospital and ICU mortality rates and ICU LOS, with no difference in total mortality, hospital LOS or severity of illness parameters. The superiority of the closed ICU format may be a result of the intensivist-led patient care and should therefore be implemented by clinicians to decrease ICU mortality rates and LOS for critically ill patients.

Value-Based Healthcare Initiatives in Practice: A Systematic Review

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Value-based initiatives are growing in importance as strategic models of healthcare management, prompting the need for an in-depth exploration of their outcome measures. This systematic review aimed to identify measures that are being used in the application of the value agenda. Multiple electronic databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials) were searched. Eligible studies reported various implementations of value-based healthcare initiatives. A qualitative approach was used to analyze their outcome measurements. Outcomes were classified according to a tier-level hierarchy. In a radar chart, we compared literature to cases from Harvard Business Publishing. The value agenda effect reported was described in terms of its impact on each domain of the value equation. A total of 7,195 records were retrieved; 47 studies were included. Forty studies used electronic health record systems for data origin. Only 16 used patient-reported outcome surveys to cover outcome tiers that are important to patients, and 3 reported outcomes to all 6 levels of our outcome measures hierarchy. A considerable proportion of the studies (36%) reported results that contributed to value-based financial outcomes focused on cost savings. However, a gap remains in measuring outcomes that matter to patients. A more complete application of the value agenda by health organizations requires advances in technology and culture change management.

Impact of hospital volume on resource use after elective cardiac surgery: A contemporary analysis

BACKGROUND

Institutional experience has been associated with reduced mortality after coronary artery bypass grafting and valve operations. Using a contemporary, national cohort, we examined the impact of hospital volume on hospitalization costs and postdischarge resource utilization after these operations.

METHODS

Adults undergoing elective coronary artery bypass grafting or valve operations were identified in the 2016 to 2017 Nationwide Readmissions Database. Institutions were grouped into volume quartiles based on annual elective cardiac surgery caseload, and comparisons were made between the lowest and highest quartiles, using generalized linear models.

RESULTS

Of an estimated 296,510 patients, 24.8% were treated at low-volume hospitals and 25.2% at high-volume hospitals. Compared with patients treated at low-volume hospitals, patients managed at high-volume hospitals were younger, had more comorbidities, and more frequently underwent combined coronary artery bypass grafting valve (13.0% vs 12.3%, P < .001) and multivalve operations (6.2% vs 3.1%, P < .001). After adjustment, operations at high-volume hospitals were associated with a $7,600 reduction (95% confidence interval $4,700-$10,500) in costs. High-volume hospitals were also associated with reduced odds of mortality, non-home discharge, and 30-day non-elective readmission compared to low-volume hospitals.

CONCLUSION

Despite increased complexity at high-volume centers, greater operative volume was independently associated with reduced hospitalization costs and mortality after elective cardiac operations. Reduction in non-home discharge and readmissions suggests this effect to extend beyond acute hospitalization, which may guide value-based care paradigms.

Effect of a risk-stratified intervention strategy on surgical complications: experience from a multicentre prospective study in China

OBJECTIVES

To develop a risk-stratified intervention strategy and evaluate its effect on reducing surgical complications.

DESIGN

A multicentre prospective study with preintervention and postintervention stages: period I (January to June 2015) to develop the intervention strategy and period II (January to June 2016) to evaluate its effectiveness.

SETTING

Four academic/teaching hospitals representing major Chinese administrative and economic regions.

PARTICIPANTS

All surgical (elective and emergent) inpatients aged ≥14 years with a minimum hospital stay of 24 hours, who underwent a surgical procedure requiring an anesthesiologist.

INTERVENTIONS

Targeted complications were grouped into three categories (common, specific, serious) according to their incidence pattern, severity and preventability. The corresponding expert consensus-generated interventions, which focused on both regulating medical practices and managing inherent patient-related risks, were implemented in a patient-tailored way via an electronic checklist system.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES

Primary outcomes were (1) in-hospital death/confirmed death within 30 days after discharge and (2) complications during hospitalisation. Secondary outcome was length of stay (LOS).

RESULTS

We included 51 030 patients in this analysis (eligibility rate 87.7%): 23 413 during period I, 27 617 during period II. Patients' characteristics were comparable during the two periods. After adjustment, the mean number of overall complications per 100 patients decreased from 8.84 to 7.56 (relative change 14.5%; P<0.0001). Specifically, complication rates decreased from 3.96 to 3.65 (7.8%) for common complications (P=0.0677), from 0.50 to 0.36 (28.0%) for specific complications (P=0.0153) and from 3.64 to 2.88 (20.9%) for serious complications (P<0.0001). From period I to period II, there was a decreasing trend for mortality (from 0.64 to 0.53; P=0.1031) and median LOS (by 1 day; P=0.8293), without statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONS

Implementing a risk-stratified intervention strategy may be a target-sensitive, convenient means to improve surgical outcomes.

Identifying logistical parameters in hospitals: Does literature reflect integration in hospitals? A scoping study

In order to improve the quality and efficiency of hospitals, they can be viewed as a logistical system in which integration is a critical factor for performance. This paper describes the results of a scoping study that identifies the logistical parameters mentioned in international research on hospitals and indicates whether literature reflects system integration. When subsystems collaborate in order to accomplish the task of the entire organization, there is integration. A total number of 106 logistical parameters are identified in our study. In addition, the flow type – patients, materials and staff – and hospital subsystems were registered. The results presented in international literature show that logistics is highly fragmented in hospitals. Studies also show integration, although this takes place mainly within the subsystems of hospitals. A multi-agent perspective on hospitals is proposed, following the view that both integration and differentiation are essential for effective organizational performance. Given the widely recognised importance of controlling hospital costs and the potential of logistics to help in this process, it is important to gain more knowledge of hospitals as network organizations, as well as knowledge regarding the degree of integration and the logistical parameters that are required for better hospital performance.

Inpatient flow management: a systematic review

Purpose

In hospitals, several patient flows compete for access to shared resources. Failure to manage these flows result in one or more disruptions within a hospital system. To ensure continuous care delivery, solving flow problems must not be limited to one unit, but should be extended to other departments – a prerequisite for solving flow problems in the entire hospital. Since most current studies focus solely on overcrowding in emergency units, additional insights are needed on system-wide patient flow management. The purpose of this paper is to look at the information available in system-wide patient flow management studies, which were also systematically evaluated to demonstrate which interventions improve inpatient flow.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors searched PubMed and Web of Science (Core Collection) literature databases and collected full-text articles using two selection and classification stages. Stage 1 was used to screen articles relating to patient flow management for inpatient settings with typical characteristics. Stage 2 was used to classify the articles selected in Stage 1 according to the interventions and their impact on patient flow within a hospital system.

Findings

In Stage 1, 107 studies were selected. Although a growing trend was observed, there were fewer studies on patient flow management in inpatient than studies in emergency settings. In Stage 2, 61 intervention studies were classified. The authors found that most interventions were about creating and adding supply resources. Since many hospital managers these days cannot easily add capacity owing to cost and resource constraints, using existing capacity efficiently is important – unfortunately not addressed in many studies. Furthermore, arrival variability was the factor most frequently mentioned as affecting flow. Of all interventions addressed in this review, the most prominent for advancing patient access to inpatient units was employing a specialized individual or team to maintain patient flow and bed placement across hospital units.

Originality/value

This study provides the first patient flow management systematic overview within an inpatient setting context.

Clinic-day surgery for children: a patient and staff perspective

INTRODUCTION

For the past 3 years, our institution has implemented a same clinic-day surgery (CDS) program, where common surgical procedures are performed the same day as the initial clinic evaluation. We sought to evaluate the patient and faculty/staff satisfaction following the implementation of this program.

METHODS

After IRB approval, patients presenting for the CDS between 2014 and 2017 were retrospectively reviewed. Of these, patient families who received CDS were contacted to perform a telephone survey focusing on their overall satisfaction and to obtain feedback. In addition, feedback from faculty/staff members directly involved in the program was obtained to determine barriers and satisfaction with the program.

RESULTS

Twenty-nine patients received CDS, with the most commonly performed procedures being inguinal hernia repair (34%) and umbilical hernia repair (24%). Twenty (69%) patients agreed to perform the telephone survey. Parents were overall satisfied with the CDS program, agreeing that the instructions were easy to understand. Overall, 79% of parents indicated that it decreased overall stress/anxiety, with 75% saying it allowed for less time away from work, and 95% agreeing to pursue CDS again if offered. The most common negative feedback was an unspecified operative start time (15%). While faculty/staff members agreed the program was patient-centered, there were concerns over low enrollment and surgeon continuity, because there were different evaluating and operating surgeons.

CONCLUSION

This study successfully evaluated the satisfaction of patients and faculty/staff members after implementing a clinic-day surgery program. Our results demonstrated improved patient family satisfaction, with families reporting decreased anxiety and less time away from work. Despite this, faculty and staff members reported challenges with enrollment and surgeon continuity.

Anesthesiologists as perioperative hospitalists and outcomes in patients undergoing major urologic surgery: a historical prospective, comparative effectiveness study

Background

Perioperative care has been identified as an area of wide variability in quality, with conflicting models, and involving multiple specialties. In 2014, the Loma Linda University Departments of Anesthesiology and Urology implemented a perioperative hospitalist service (PHS), consisting of anesthesiology-trained physicians, to co-manage patients for the entirety of their perioperative period. We hypothesized that implementation of this PHS model would result in an improvement in patient recovery.

Methods

As a quality improvement (QI) initiative, the PHS service was formed of selected anesthesiologists who received training on the core competencies for hospitalist medicine. The service was implemented following a co-management agreement to medically manage patients undergoing major urologic procedures (prostatectomy, cystectomy, and nephrectomy). Impact was assessed by comparisons to data from the year prior to PHS service implementation. Data was compared with and without propensity matching. Primary outcome marker was a reduction in length of stay. Secondary outcome markers included complication rate, return of bowel function, number of consultations, reduction in total direct patient costs, and bed days saved.

Results

Significant reductions in length of stay (p <  0.05) were demonstrated for all surgical procedures with propensity matching and were demonstrated for cystectomy and nephrectomy cases without. Significant reductions in complication rates and ileus were also observed for all surgical procedures post-PHS implementation. Additionally, reductions in total direct patient costs and frequency of consultations were also observed.

Conclusions

Anesthesiologists can safely function as perioperative hospitalists, providing appropriate medical management, and significantly improving both patient recovery and throughput.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s13741-018-0090-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A structured framework for optimizing surgical quality through process-of-care trials

Increased national focus has been placed on care delivery processes and their effect on health care quality. At the institutional level, investigators are increasingly engaged in surgical process-of-care trials that, compared to traditional randomized treatment trials, more explicitly control and mitigate provider- and system-based risk. Process-of-care trials have the potential to improve patient care while also improving the culture of a surgical department, hospital, and system.

[A structured look at the problem of patients' safety in surgery]

AIM

To study surgeons' awareness about safety of patients in surgery and to determine necessary educational measures in this area.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

110 surgeons were interviewed. Mean length of work was 16.1±0.97 years. 88.2% of surgeons worked at hospitals. 47.3% of surgeons were engaged elective surgery.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Previously 55.5% of respondents were involved into conflict with patients. A half of respondents are familiar with WHO program «About patient' safety» and key issues of patient' safety during prevention of postoperative thromboembolic and infectious complications. 76% of respondents have the possibility to use videoendoscopic technologies, but only 36% of them realize these techniques. Up to 33% of respondents consider to be studied at certification cycles only. Many surgeons use the Internet as the main source of information.

CONCLUSION

Current tendencies of surgical development require to focus on perioperative safety and the need for intensive research of the technologies of surgical patients' safety.

Development, Functioning, and Effectiveness of a Preoperative Risk Assessment Clinic

Lee first described the concept of preoperative assessment testing (PAT) clinic in 1949. An efficiently run clinic is associated with increased cost-effectiveness by lowering preoperative admission time and thus reducing the length of stay and the associated costs. The setup of the PAT clinic should be based on the needs, culture, and resources of the institution. Various models for the setup of PAT clinic have been described, including the concept of a perioperative surgical home, which is a patient-centered model designed to improve health and the delivery of health care and to reduce the cost of care. Although there are several constraints in the development of PAT clinics, with increasing awareness about the usefulness of pre-operative risk assessments, growing bodies of literature, and evidence-based guidelines, these clinics are becoming a medical necessity for the improvement of perioperative care.

The risk-outcome-experience triad: Mortality risk and the hospital consumer assessment of healthcare providers and systems survey

BACKGROUND

Studies have shown an association between the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey (HCAHPS) scores and clinical quality. The mortality risk on admission predicts adverse events. It is not known if this risk also portends a suboptimal patient experience.

OBJECTIVE

To determine if the admission mortality risk identifies an experience of care risk.

DESIGN

A retrospectively assembled cohort in which individual HCAHPS survey responses were linked to the admission risk of dying.

SETTING

Five community hospitals of various sizes in Michigan.

PATIENTS

There were 17,509 HCAHPS medical and surgical respondents; 2513 (14.4%) were at high risk of dying.

MEASUREMENTS

Odds ratio (OR) (high-risk patients to low-risk patients) for providing a top box score for HCAHPS dimensions, controlling for hospital and the standard HCAHPS patient mix adjustment factors.

RESULTS

High-risk respondents were less likely to provide the most favorable response (unadjusted) for all HCAHPS domains, although the difference was not significant (P = 0.09) for discharge information. Multivariable analyses indicated that high-risk patients were less likely to report a top box experience for doctor communication (OR: 0.85; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.77-0.94) and responsiveness of hospital staff (OR: 0.77; 95% CI: 0.69-0.85), but were more likely to have received adequate discharge information (OR: 1.30, 95% CI: 1.14-1.48).

CONCLUSIONS

Patients at high risk of dying who completed surveys were less likely to report favorable physician communication and staff responsiveness. Further understanding of these relationships may help design a care model to improve both outcomes and experience. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2016;11:628-635. © 2016 Society of Hospital Medicine.

The effect of suicide attempts on suicide ideation by family members in fast developed country, Korea

INTRODUCTION

Suicide is a leading cause of death globally and is one of the most exigent health problems, especially in Korea. Individuals think about suicide first before they attempt and possibly complete suicide. If attempted or completed suicide affects suicidal ideation by family members or close individuals, suicide could spread like an infectious disease. We hypothesized that a suicide attempt by a family member could affect suicidal ideation. We analyzed the association between suicidal ideation and previous suicide attempts by family members.

METHODS

This study used data from the fourth and fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2012). The independent variable of interest is the existence of a cohabitating family member who previously attempted suicide. The dependent variable is self-reported suicide ideation during past year. The data analysis was conducted using the chi-square test and survey logistic regression.

RESULTS

Suicidal ideation was reported by 14.3% of the total study population (9.5% of males, 19.0% of females), by 23.6% (22.8% of males, 31.3% of females) of individuals with a family member who attempted suicide, and by 14.1% (9.3% of males, 19.9% of females) of individuals without a family member who attempted suicide. Individuals with a family member who attempted suicide had increased odds of suicidal ideation compared with those without a family member who attempted suicide (odds ratio=2.09, 95% CI 1.48-2.49, p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

To prevent suicide spreading like an infectious disease, government and policy makers should give thought and consideration to individuals with a family member who attempts suicide.

The impact of redesigning care processes on quality of care: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

This literature review evaluates the current state of knowledge about the impact of process redesign on the quality of healthcare.

METHODS

Pubmed, CINAHL, Web of Science and Business Premier Source were searched for relevant studies published in the last ten years [2004-2014]. To be included, studies had to be original research, published in English with a before-and-after study design, and be focused on changes in healthcare processes and quality of care. Studies that met the inclusion criteria were independently assessed for excellence in reporting by three reviewers using the SQUIRE checklist. Data was extracted using a framework developed for this review.

RESULTS

Reporting adequacy varied across the studies. Process redesign interventions were diverse, and none of the studies described their effects on all dimensions of quality defined by the Institute of Medicine.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this systematic literature review suggests that process redesign interventions have positive effects on certain aspects of quality. However, the full impact cannot be determined on the basis of the literature. A wide range of outcome measures were used, and research methods were limited. This review demonstrates the need for further investigation of the impact of redesign interventions on the quality of healthcare.

Safety hazards in abdominal surgery related to communication between surgical and anesthesia unit personnel found in a Swedish nationwide survey

Background

Many adverse events occur due to poor communication between surgical and anesthesia unit personnel. The aim of this study was to identify strategies to reduce risks unveiled by a national survey on patient safety.

Methods

During 2011–2015, specially trained survey teams visited the surgery departments at Swedish hospitals and documented routines concerning safety in abdominal surgery. The reports from the first seventeen visits were reviewed by an independent group in order to extract findings related to routines in communication between anesthesia and surgical unit personnel.

Results

In general, routines regarding preoperative risk assessment were safe and well- coordinated. On the other hand, routines regarding medication prior to surgery, reporting between the different units, and systems for reporting and providing feedback on adverse events were poor or missing. Strategies with highest priority include: 1. a uniform national health declaration form; 2. consistent use of admission notes; 3. systems for documenting all important medical information, that is accessible to everyone; 4. a multidisciplinary forum for the evaluation of high-risk patients; 5. weekly and daily scheduling of surgical programs; 6. application of the WHO check list; 7. open dialog during surgery; 8. reporting based on SBAR; 9. oral and written reports from the surgeon to the postoperative unit; and 10. combined mortality and morbidity conferences.

Conclusion

One repeatedly occurring hazard endangering patient safety was related to communication between surgical and anesthesia unit personnel. Strategies to reduce this hazard are suggested, but further research is required to test their effectiveness.

Implementation of a mortality prediction rule for real-time decision making: feasibility and validity

BACKGROUND

A previously published, retrospectively derived prediction rule for death within 30 days of hospital admission has the potential to launch parallel interdisciplinary team activities. Whether or not patient care improves will depend on the validity of prospectively generated predictions, and the feasibility of generating them on demand for a critical proportion of inpatients.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the feasibility of generating mortality predictions on admission and to validate their accuracy using the scoring weights of the retrospective rule.

DESIGN

Prospective, sequential cohort.

SETTING

Large, tertiary care, community hospital in the Midwestern United States

PATIENTS

Adult patients admitted from the emergency department or scheduled for elective surgery

RESULTS

Mortality predictions were generated on demand at the beginning of the hospitalization for 9312 (92.9%) out of a possible 10,027 cases. The area under the receiver operating curve for 30-day mortality was 0.850 (95% confidence interval: 0.833-0.866), indicating very good to excellent discrimination. The prospectively generated 30-day mortality risk had a strong association with the receipt of palliative care by hospital discharge, in-hospital mortality, and 180-day mortality, a fair association with the risk for 30-day readmissions and unplanned transfers to intensive care, and weak associations with receipt of intensive unit care ever within the hospitalization or the development of a new diagnosis that was not present on admission (ie, complication).

CONCLUSIONS

Important prognostic information is feasible to obtain in a real-time, single-assessment process for a sizeable proportion of hospitalized patients.

The extended rapid response system: 1-year experience in a university hospital

The rapid response system (RRS) is an innovative system designed for in-hospital, at-risk patients but underutilization of the RRS generally results in unexpected cardiopulmonary arrests. We implemented an extended RRS (E-RRS) that was triggered by actively screening at-risk patients prior to calls from primary medical attendants. These patients were identified from laboratory data, emergency consults, and step-down units. A four-member rapid response team was assembled that included an ICU staff, and the team visited the patients more than twice per day for evaluation, triage, and treatment of the patients with evidence of acute physiological decline. The goal was to provide this treatment before the team received a call from the patient's primary physician. We sought to describe the effectiveness of the E-RRS at preventing sudden and unexpected arrests and in-hospital mortality. Over the 1-yr intervention period, 2,722 patients were screened by the E-RRS program from 28,661 admissions. There were a total of 1,996 E-RRS activations of simple consultations for invasive procedures. After E-RRS implementation, the mean hospital code rate decreased by 31.1% and the mean in-hospital mortality rate was reduced by 15.3%. In conclusion, the implementation of E-RRS is associated with a reduction in the in-hospital code and mortality rates.

Matching clinicians to operative cases: a novel application of a patient acuity score

BACKGROUND

Patient and surgical case complexity are important considerations in creating appropriate clinical assignments for trainees in the operating room (OR). The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Physical Status Classification System is the most commonly used tool to classify patient illness severity, but it requires manual evaluation by a clinician and is highly variable. A Risk Stratification System for surgical patients was recently published which uses administrative billing codes to calculate four Risk Stratification Indices (RSIs) and provides an objective surrogate for patient complexity that does not require clinical evaluation. This risk score could be helpful when assigning operating room cases.

OBJECTIVES

This is a technical feasibility study to evaluate the process and potential utility of incorporating an automatic risk score calculation into a web-based tool for assigning OR cases.

METHODS

We created a web service implementation of the RSI model for one-year mortality and automatically calculated the RSI values for patients scheduled to undergo an operation the following day. An analysis was conducted on data availability for the RSI model and the correlation between RSI values and ASA physical status.

RESULTS

In a retrospective analysis of 46,740 patients who received surgery in the year preceding the web tool implementation, RSI values were generated for 20,638 patients (44%). The Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between ASA physical status classification and one-year mortality RSI values was 0.404.

CONCLUSION

We have shown that it is possible to create a web-based tool that uses existing billing data to automatically calculate risk scores for patients scheduled to undergo surgery. Such a risk scoring system could be used to match patient acuity to physician experience, and to provide improved patient and clinician experiences. The web tool could be improved by expanding the input database or utilizing procedure booking codes rather than billing data.

The Perioperative Surgical Home: how can it make the case so everyone wins?

BACKGROUND

Varied and fragmented care plans undertaken by different practitioners currently expose surgical patients to lapses in expected care, increase the chance for operational mistakes and accidents, and often result in unnecessary care. The Perioperative Surgical Home has thus been proposed by the American Society of Anesthesiologists and other stakeholders as an innovative, patient-centered, surgical continuity of care model that incorporates shared decision making. Topics central to the debate about an anesthesiology-based Perioperative Surgical Home include: holding the gains made in anesthesia-related patient safety; impacting surgical morbidity and mortality, including failure-to-rescue; achieving healthcare outcome metrics; assimilating comparative effectiveness research into the model; establishing necessary audit and data collection; a comparison with the hospitalist model of perioperative care; the perspective of the surgeon; the benefits of the Perioperative Surgical Home to the specialty of anesthesiology; and its associated healthcare economic advantages.

DISCUSSION

Improving surgical morbidity and mortality mandates a more comprehensive and integrated approach to the management of surgical patients. In their expanded capacity as the surgical patient's "perioperativist," anesthesiologists can play a key role in compliance with broader set of process measures, thus becoming a more vital and valuable provider from the patient, administrator, and payer perspective. The robust perioperative databases created within the Perioperative Surgical Home present new opportunities for health services and population-level research. The Perioperative Surgical Home is not intended to replace the surgeon's patient care responsibility, but rather leverage the abilities of the entire perioperative care team in the service of the patient. To achieve this goal, it will be necessary to expand the core knowledge, skills, and experience of anesthesiologists. Anesthesiologists will need to view becoming perioperative physicians as an expansion of the specialty, rather than an abdication of their traditional intraoperative role. The Perioperative Surgical Home will need to create strategic added value for a health system and payers. This added value will strengthen the position of anesthesiologists as they navigate and negotiate in the face of finite, if not decreasing fiscal resources.

SUMMARY

Broadening the anesthesiologist's scope of practice via the Perioperative Surgical Home may promote standardization and improve clinical outcomes and decrease resource utilization by providing greater patient-centered continuity of care throughout the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods.

Anesthesia for liver transplantation in US academic centers: institutional structure and perioperative care

Investigators at a single institution have shown that the organization of the anesthesia team influences patient outcomes after liver transplant surgery. Little is known about how liver transplant anesthesiologists are organized to deliver care throughout the United States. Therefore, we collected quantitative survey data from adult liver transplant programs in good standing with national governing agencies so that we could describe team structure and duties. Information was collected from 2 surveys in a series of quantitative surveys conducted by the Liver Transplant Anesthesia Consortium. All data related to duties, criteria for team membership, interactions/communication with the multidisciplinary team, and service availability were collected and summarized. Thirty-four of 119 registered transplant centers were excluded (21 pediatric centers and 13 centers not certified by national governing agencies). Private practice sites (26) were later excluded because of a poor response rate. There were minimal changes in the compositions of the programs between the 2 surveys. All academic programs had distinct liver transplant anesthesia teams. Most had set criteria for membership and protocols outlining the preoperative evaluation, attended selection committees, and were always available for transplant surgery. Fewer were involved in postoperative care or were available for patients needing subsequent surgery. Most trends were associated with the center volume. In conclusion, some of the variance in team structure and responsibilities is probably related to resources available at the site of practice. However, similarities in specific duties across all teams suggest some degree of self-initiated specialization.

Staying alive: strategies for accountable health care

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law in March 2010, has led to sweeping changes to the US health care system. The ensuing pace of change in health care regulation is unparalleled and difficult for physicians to keep up with. Because of the extraordinary challenges that have arisen, the public policy committee of the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary tract conducted a symposium at their 52nd Annual Meeting in May 2011 to educate participants on the myriad of public policy changes occurring in order to best prepare them for their future. Expert speakers presented their views on policy changes affecting diverse areas including patient safety, patient experience, hospital and provider fiscal challenges, and the life of the practicing surgeon. In all areas, surgical leadership was felt to be critical to successfully navigate the new health care landscape as surgeons have a long history of providing safe, high quality, low cost care. The recognition of shared values among the diverse constituents affected by health care policy changes will best prepare surgeons to control their own destiny and successfully manage new challenges as they emerge.

Do hospitalist physicians improve the quality of inpatient care delivery? A systematic review of process, efficiency and outcome measures

BACKGROUND

Despite more than a decade of research on hospitalists and their performance, disagreement still exists regarding whether and how hospital-based physicians improve the quality of inpatient care delivery. This systematic review summarizes the findings from 65 comparative evaluations to determine whether hospitalists provide a higher quality of inpatient care relative to traditional inpatient physicians who maintain hospital privileges with concurrent outpatient practices.

METHODS

Articles on hospitalist performance published between January 1996 and December 2010 were identified through MEDLINE, Embase, Science Citation Index, CINAHL, NHS Economic Evaluation Database and a hand-search of reference lists, key journals and editorials. Comparative evaluations presenting original, quantitative data on processes, efficiency or clinical outcome measures of care between hospitalists, community-based physicians and traditional academic attending physicians were included (n = 65). After proposing a conceptual framework for evaluating inpatient physician performance, major findings on quality are summarized according to their percentage change, direction and statistical significance.

RESULTS

The majority of reviewed articles demonstrated that hospitalists are efficient providers of inpatient care on the basis of reductions in their patients' average length of stay (69%) and total hospital costs (70%); however, the clinical quality of hospitalist care appears to be comparable to that provided by their colleagues. The methodological quality of hospitalist evaluations remains a concern and has not improved over time. Persistent issues include insufficient reporting of source or sample populations (n = 30), patients lost to follow-up (n = 42) and estimates of effect or random variability (n = 35); inappropriate use of statistical tests (n = 55); and failure to adjust for established confounders (n = 37).

CONCLUSIONS

Future research should include an expanded focus on the specific structures of care that differentiate hospitalists from other inpatient physician groups as well as the development of better conceptual and statistical models that identify and measure underlying mechanisms driving provider-outcome associations in quality.