High Risk Surgical Patients Have Lower Mortality Rates at Major Teaching Hospitals

I firmly believe that it's important to get oneself to a major teaching hospital if you fall into the category of a high risk, general surgery patient. A recent article put some numbers to this advice (see:High risk patients have lower mortality rates at major teaching hospitals). Below is an excerpt from the article:New research published in the Annals of Surgery shows that high-risk general surgery patients have greater survival rates at major teaching hospitals than at non-teaching hospitals....The 30-day mortality rate for these high-risk patients was 15.9% at major teaching hospitals, compared with 18.2% at non-teaching hospitals....They examined the medical records of 350,000 Medicare beneficiaries who underwent general, vascular, or orthopedic surgery at 2,780 hospitals across the country, including 340 major teaching hospitals....The study examined costs and patient outcomes —including 30-day mortality rates—for procedures, such as mastectomy, appendectomy, gastric bypass, blood vessel repair, total knee replacement, and more. The researchers calculated the cost of care within 30 days of admission, including office visits and readmissions....The mortality rate of high-risk vascular surgery patients was 15.5% at teaching hospitals compared to 16.4% at non-teaching hospitals. The mortality rate for orthopedic surgery procedures was significantly lower overall than the rates for vascular and general surgery.In my view, the reason why major teaching hospital...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Delivery Hospital Financial Medical Research Population Health Public Health Quality of Care Source Type: blogs