• Eileen M Duggan, Dan W Gates, Jenny M Slayton, and Martin L Blakely.
• Department of Pediatric Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232-2730, USA. Electronic address: Eileen.m.duggan@vanderbilt.edu.
• J. Pediatr. Surg. 2014 Aug 1;49(8):1292-4.

Background/PurposeNSQIP Pediatric (NSQIP-P) is a robust quality improvement effort. A limitation of the NSQIP process lies in capturing a small proportion of the total case volume. This study examines whether appendectomies captured by NSQIP-P are concordant with all appendectomies, the most commonly captured procedure in 2011.MethodsWe compared case mix and 30-day outcomes between children undergoing an appendectomy who were included in NSQIP (n=80) and children not captured by NSQIP (n=276) during 2011 at a tertiary referral children's hospital. A single surgical case reviewer reviewed all cases using NSQIP-P methodology.ResultsNSQIP-P captured 80 of a total of 356 appendectomies (22%). The case mix was similar between NSQIP and non-NSQIP groups (e.g., 31% of each group had complicated appendicitis). Outcomes were also similar; post-operative occurrences, readmissions and return to the operation room occurred at rates of 7.5% vs. 7.6%, 5% vs. 4.7%, and 3.8% vs. 4.3% respectively.ConclusionAlthough NSQIP-P captured a minority of the total patient population that had an appendectomy, the case mix and outcomes were similar. Our results offer reassurance that NSQIP-P data are representative of the larger population for this procedure. Whether this concordance exists for procedures less commonly performed is unknown and a focus of ongoing work.© 2014.

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