Abstract 15330: Association Between Elective Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Appropriateness and Publicly Reported Outcomes

Abstract

Introduction: Public reporting of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) outcomes such as readmission and mortality may cause harm by adversely affecting patient selection for PCI. Little is known about the relationship between these outcomes and elective PCI appropriateness - a validated metric of PCI quality. Methods: We identified all patients in the national Veterans Administration healthcare system who underwent elective PCI for stable coronary disease between 2013 and 2015. We defined PCI appropriateness using 2012 criteria. The primary outcome was 90-day all-cause hospitalization or mortality. We used hierarchical Cox proportional hazards regression models adjusted for patient- and facility-level covariates to compare outcomes across PCI appropriateness categories, and a joint survival/logistic model to compare facility-level variation in inappropriate PCI and 90-day outcomes. Results: Among 2,561 patients (mean age 66 years, 99% men) undergoing PCI across 59 sites, 29.6% were classified as appropriate, 10.4% as inappropriate, and 60% as uncertain. The proportion of patients who were readmitted or died were 15.6%, 16.4%, and 15.3% among patients who received appropriate, inappropriate, and uncertain PCI respectively. There were no significant differences in 90-day outcomes between the groups (hazard ratio for appropriate compared to inappropriate PCI 0.82 [CI 0.57 to 1.17; p=0.28]). The site level covariance between inappropriate PCI and 90-day outcomes was -0.033 (95% CI -0.117 to 0.047), indicating no site-level correlation between appropriateness and 90-day outcomes (Figure). Conclusion: We found no association between elective PCI appropriateness and 90-day outcomes among a national cohort of Veterans. Including appropriateness in public reports may 1) characterize PCI quality more fully and 2) potentially mitigate the harms of reporting outcomes by empowering providers to perform appropriate PCI in higher-risk patients.