Annals of surgery
-
Identify the considerations academic surgeons use when determining which portions of a procedure are "critical" and necessitate their presence. ⋯ Although critical portion definitions are largely treated as subjective, surgeons across multiple specialties identified consistent themes defining "critical portions'', suggesting that setting a minimum standard for criticality is feasible for specific procedures. Surgeons also recognized contextual factors that support the need for case-specific judgement beyond minimum standard. This framework of procedure features and contextual factors may be used as a guide for surgeons making day-to-day decisions and in future work to formally define critical portions for a given procedure.
-
To assess 4 measures of the accumulating deficits model of frailty for postoperative mortality and readmissions including their stability over time. ⋯ The 4 methods of calculating frailty performed similarly and were stable. The actual method of determining the accumulated deficits may not be as important as enumerating their number.