Children’s heart surgery website aims to end confusion over survival rates

Researchers have launched a website to help end public “confusion and alarm” about survival data on children’s heart surgery outcomes in the United Kingdom and Ireland. They said that the government, scientists, companies, and other bodies should do more to make health statistics understandable to patients and their families.

The website, Understanding Children’s Heart Surgery Outcomes,1 which is supported by the charity Sense about Science, explains the 30 day survival rate after children’s heart surgery. The charity’s director, Tracey Brown, said that “overinterpretation of faulty data” in 2013 had caused alarm for patients’ families and the temporary closure of Leeds General Infirmary’s paediatric heart unit.

“This …