Early Reexploration for Bleeding Is Associated with Improved Outcome in Cardiac Surgery

Since reexploration after cardiac surgery, most often for bleeding, is used as a metric to assess surgical performance, surgeons may delay returning to the operating room in favor of attempting nonoperative management. This single-institution retrospective review aimed to investigate the impact of the timing of reexploration on morbidity and mortality. The study concluded that implications from using reexploration as a performance metric may lead to unnecessary delay and patient harm.