Interpret surgical outcome data with care

doi:10.1136/bmj.a1401

Published 27 August 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1401
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1401

Letters

Surgical outcome data

Interpret surgical outcome data with care

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Surgical outcome measures available on the NHS Choices website(www.nhs.uk/Pages/Mortalityrates.aspx) included the number ofoperations performed, readmission rates, and a broad estimateof procedural risk.¹ We believe the reported data were underminedby inaccuracy. Furthermore, the numerical data seemed to havebeen available only to the press, rather than being clearlyin the public domain.²

The outcomes seemed to be based on secondary uses service datathat may not have been analysed after the most recent updates,making the results prone to misinterpretation as not all hospitalssubmit data concurrently. More importantly, the identificationof cases seems to have been simplistic. Clinical coding mayuse various diagnostic and procedural codes for any particularcondition, making the acquisition of a complete dataset an involvedprocess.³

Clinical consultation for each procedure would have providedapproximate case volumes that could have been checked againstthe published data. However, case numbers specified . . . [Full text of this article]

Peter J E Holt, clinical lecturer in vascular surgery¹, Jan D Poloniecki, reader in medical statistics², Matt M Thompson, professor of vascular surgery¹

¹ St George’s Vascular Institute, London SW17 0QT, ² St George’s University of London, London SW17 0RE

peteholt@btinternet.com