title: Evaluation of complication rates after coronary artery bypass surgery using administrative data.
abstract: Our objectives were (1) to determine if studying hospital complication rates after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery provides information not available when only mortality is studied, and (2) to reexplore the utility of ICD-9-CM administrative data for CABG outcomes assessment. Using data from Massachusetts, we identified CABG cohorts from 1990 and 1992 to respectively develop and validate multivariate risk adjustment models predicting in-hospital mortality and complications. The resulting models had good discrimination and calibration. In 1992, adjusted hospital complication rates ranged widely from 13.0% to 57.6%, while mortality rates ranged from 1.4% to 6.1%. Hospitals with high complication rates tended to have high mortality (r = 0.74, p = 0.006), but 2 of the 12 hospitals studied ranked quite differently when judged by complications rather than mortality. We conclude that (1) complications after CABG occur frequently and may provide information about hospital quality beyond that obtained from hospital mortality rates, and that (2) administrative data continue to be a promising resource for outcomes research.
authors.affiliation: Health Care Research Unit, Evans Department of Medicine, Boston Medical Center, MA, USA. wghali@acs.ucalgary.ca
authors.forename: W A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Ghali
authors.forename: R E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Ash
authors.forename: A K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Rosen
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Moskowitz
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015331:Cohort Studies; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000401:mortality; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D005260:Female; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D018570:Risk Assessment; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome