Surgeon-level reporting on surgical outcomes is a controversial topic that has received much blowback from the medical community, but Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, believes it is a necessary step to ensure top quality care, according to an op-ed penned in JAMA.
Surgical outcomes are currently reported by hospital, but many critics of surgeon-level reporting argue that individual outcomes offer too small a sample size to accurately gauge an organization's level of quality. A predicted negative outcome of individual reporting is that surgeons will avoid risky or difficult surgeries for fear of having poor outcomes. Critics also say that surgery is a team effort involving many different parties, and narrowing its results down to one person is misleading.
However, Dr. Jha argues that variations in outcomes across surgeons demonstrate that variables such as individual judgment, skill and technique are the most important factors for surgical outcomes. He also believes people decide where they will have surgery based on the surgeon and not the hospital, making surgeon-level reporting the most useful information for patients.
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