Opportunity for performance measurement: 30-day mortality following cancer surgeries across U.S. hospitals.

Abstract

e18221 Background: While public reporting of surgical outcomes for non-cancer conditions is common, measures of outcomes following surgery for cancer have generally been excluded. This is true even though numerous studies show large variations between hospitals. We assessed whether prerequisites for quality reporting are present for the measure of 30-day cancer surgical mortality: low burden for timely reporting, hospital variation, and potential for public health gains. Methods: We used Fee-for-Service (FFS) Medicare claims to examine the extent of variation in 30-day mortality between 3,860 U.S. hospitals performing cancer surgery for patients ≥66 years, 2011-2013. Hierarchical mixed-effects logistic regression models adjusted for patient and hospital characteristics and with a random hospital effect were fit to obtain hospital-specific risk-standardized mortality rates (RSMRs) and 99% confidence intervals (CI). From these models we calculated a hospital odds ratio to describe the difference in the mortality risk for a hospital above versus below average quality and estimated the potential reduction in mortality under a scenario of improved quality for the lowest performers. Outcomes included extent of hospital variability in 30-day mortality after cancer surgery; and impact on lives saved from improving performance at outlier hospitals. Results: Over the three-year observation period, the median number of cancer surgeries performed per hospital was 34. For individual cancer sites, it was < 10, except for breast (median 17) and colorectal (median 14). The median RSMR overall was 2.41% (99% CI 2.28%, 2.66%). Breast had the lowest RSMR (median 0.24%) and gastroesophageal the highest (median 5.72%). In aggregate and for most individual cancers, variation between hospitals exceeded that due to differences in patient and hospital characteristics, and was robust to excluding emergent cases. For individual cancer sites, relative differences exceeded 20% in the risk of 30-day mortality between patients undergoing surgery at a hospital below average quality versus above average quality, with the potential for an estimated 500 deaths prevented annually given hypothetical improvements. Conclusions: Quality measurement and reporting of 30-day mortality for cancer surgery is worthy of consideration.