• Jason D Wright, Ana I Tergas, Cande V Ananth, William M Burke, Ling Chen, Alfred I Neugut, Catherine A Richards, and Dawn L Hershman.
• Affiliations of authors: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (JDW, AIT, CVA, WMB, LC), Department of Medicine (AIN, DLH), and Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (JDW, AIT, AIN, DLH, WMB), Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY; Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University (AIT, CVA, AIN, CAR, DLH). jw2459@columbia.edu.
• J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 2015 Mar 1;107(3).

BackgroundHospital-level measures of patient satisfaction and quality are now reported publically by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. There are limited metrics specific to cancer patients. We examined whether publically reported hospital satisfaction and quality data were associated with surgical oncologic outcomes.MethodsThe Nationwide Inpatient Sample was utilized to identify patients with solid tumors who underwent surgical resection in 2009 and 2010. The hospitals were linked to Hospital Compare, which collects data on patient satisfaction, perioperative quality, and 30-day mortality for medical conditions (pneumonia, myocardial infarction [MI], and congestive heart failure [CHF]). The risk-adjusted hospital-level rates of morbidity and mortality were calculated for each hospital and the means compared between the highest and lowest performing hospital quartiles and reported as absolute reduction in risk (ARR), the difference in risk of the outcome between the two groups. All statistical tests were two-sided.ResultsA total of 63197 patients treated at 448 hospitals were identified. For patients at high vs low performing hospitals based on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores, the ARR in perioperative morbidity was 3.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.4% to 5.7%, P = .02). Similarly, the ARR for mortality based on the same measure was -0.4% (95% CI = -1.5% to 0.6%, P = .40). High performance on perioperative quality measures resulted in an ARR of 0% to 2.2% for perioperative morbidity (P > .05 for all). Similarly, there was no statistically significant association between hospital-level mortality rates for MI (ARR = 0.7%, 95% CI = -1.0% to 2.5%), heart failure (ARR = 1.0%, 95% CI = -0.6% to 2.7%), or pneumonia (ARR = 1.6%, 95% CI = -0.3% to 3.5%) and complications for oncologic surgery patients.ConclusionCurrently available measures of patient satisfaction and quality are poor predictors of outcomes for cancer patients undergoing surgery. Specific metrics for long-term oncologic outcomes and quality are needed.© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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