title: Surgical mortality - an analysis of all deaths within a general surgical department.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Post-operative mortality is one of the most universal and important outcomes that can be measured in surgical practice and is increasingly used to measure quality of care. The aim of this study was to evaluate overall mortality within a surgical department and to analyse factors associated with operative and non-operative death.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analysed prospectively collected data detailing all surgical admissions, procedures and mortalities over a twelve year period (2000-2012) from a regional Irish hospital. We evaluated type of operation, patient factors and cause of death.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 62 085 patients were admitted under surgical care between the 1st of January 2000 and the 31st of December 2011. There were a total of 578 deaths during this period (0.93% overall mortality rate). 415 deaths (71.8%) occurred in non-operative patients in which advanced cancer (36.5%), sepsis (14.9%), cardiorespiratory failure (13.2%) and trauma (11%) were the primary causes. A total of 22 788 surgical procedures were performed with an operative mortality rate of 0.71%. Mortality rate following elective surgery was 0.17% and following emergency surgery was 10-fold higher (1.7%). The main cause of post-operative death was sepsis (30.02%). Emergency operations, increasing age and major procedures significantly increased mortality risk (p < 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Post-operative deaths comprise a small proportion of overall deaths within a surgical service. Mortality figures alone are not an accurate representation of surgical performance but in the absence of other easily available quality outcome measures they can be used as a surrogate marker when all confounding factors are accounted for.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Wexford General Hospital, Ireland. Electronic address: annaheeney@gmail.com.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heeney
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Wexford General Hospital, Ireland.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hand
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Wexford General Hospital, Ireland.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bates
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Wexford General Hospital, Ireland.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Mc Cormack
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Wexford General Hospital, Ireland.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mealy
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002423:Cause of Death / Q000639:trends; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D017052:Hospital Mortality / Q000639:trends; D006769:Hospitals, General / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000401:mortality*; D015996:Survival Rate / Q000639:trends
keywords: Audit; Outcomes; Performance; Post-operative deaths; Surgical mortality