ABSTRACT

There is increasing interest among surgeons and health care administrators in monitoring post treatment outcomes, such as hospital length of stay or 30-day mortality, defined as death within 30 days of surgery. Monitoring such outcomes over time allows better oversight of the health care process. In this way serious problems can be rapidly detected and performance can be compared across care providers. In the long run, more quickly eliminating causes of problems and adopting best practices will result in process improvement and better care for patients.