Surgeon-Specific Quality Monitoring System for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

Gu and colleagues developed a surgeon-specific quality monitoring system using a structured database of information derived from electronic health records. Additionally, they used a mobile-based system to provide feedback to surgeons on risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, and other quality measures. The authors report on both the development of the system and the quality measures of top, middle, and bottom performing surgeons, with differences observed only for the rate of internal mammary artery use, the risk-adjusted postoperative length of stay, and risk-adjusted hospitalization cost. They conclude that the system allowed surgeons to compare their own surgical quality with that of their colleagues and identify priorities for improvement.