title: Planning for cardiac surgical services: advice from an Ontario consensus panel. For the Consensus Panel on Cardiac Surgical Services in Ontario and the Steering Committee of the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario.
abstract: The Cardiac Care Network of Ontario (CCN) Consensus Panel on Cardiac Surgical Services drew on the literature and its own expertise to recommend guidelines for expanding services. This report, which is not an official position paper of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, presents these recommendations. Rates of surgery are linked to diagnostic capacity, requiring increases in interventional therapies to match increases in invasive diagnostic activity. For quality and efficiency, panel members recommend an annual minimum of 150 procedures per surgeon and 500 per centre; a centre should serve a minimum population of 500,000. Services should be as close to patients' homes as possible while maintaining recommended volumes. Expanding the CCN's cardiac surgery database to include other cardiac modalities will yield a more accurate assessment of waiting times. The panel recommends collaborative regional planning associations, mentorship arrangements between new and existing centres, prompt action on human resource shortages and exploration of alternative funding models.
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto, The Toronto General Hospital, Canada.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Scully
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Vimr
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jütte
authors.forename: G G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Thompson
mesh_terms: D006348:Cardiac Surgical Procedures / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000601:surgery; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D009864:Ontario; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013503:Surgery Department, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013903:Thoracic Surgery / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016526:Workload / Q000706:statistics & numerical data