International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care
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Int J Qual Health Care · Jun 1997
Multicenter StudyThe relationship between choice of outcome measure and hospital rank in general surgical procedures: implications for quality assessment.
Institutional complication rates are often used to assess hospital quality of care, particularly for conditions and procedures where mortality rates are not useful because deaths are rare. The objective of this study was to assess the correlation among hospital quality assessment rankings based on adjusted mortality, complication and failure-to-rescue rates. ⋯ For general surgical procedures, hospital rank using the complication rate is poorly correlated with rankings using the death or failure rate. Complication rates should be used with great caution and should not be used in isolation when assessing hospital quality of care.