Public reporting of individual surgeon performance information: United Kingdom developments and Australian issues

Abstract

The United Kingdom is currently introducing public reporting of performance information for individual cardiac surgeons. The reports will indicate whether a surgeon has an acceptable level of performance, measured by in‐hospital mortality. In the United States, surgeon‐specific performance data have been available for over a decade. Arguments from both safety and accountability perspectives provide strong justifications for public reporting of such data. Were Australia to adopt similar public reporting processes, we should learn from overseas experiences. Surgical associations should be actively involved in developing data standards and processes for data collection, validation, analysis and publication. Any Australian policy initiative for public reporting of individual surgeon data should be backed by a political commitment to adequate funding.

Performance reporting for consumers: issues for the Australian private hospital sector

“…Supporting consumer choice has been a particular focus in the United States, while accountability has been the focus in the United Kingdom [11] and Canada [5]. Accountability has also been the focus of public sector reports published by Australian State Governments that provide comparative data for public hospitals [12]. Use of performance reporting to promote quality is evident in many countries [5] and public reporting to improve both quality and accountability has become a priority in Australia in the wake of research [13,14] and a number of public inquiries [15-20] that highlighted the need for a safer and more accountable health care system [21-24].…”

Assessing Surgeons’ Disclosure of Risk Information Before Carotid Endarterectomy

“…28 Perhaps patients were given this information before surgery but were unable to recall this at the time of survey completion. Public reporting and consumer dissemination of audit results such as surgeon-specific performance 29 requires support from specific educational initiatives for target audiences to enable accurate interpretation of risk information. 30 Some patients prefer non-numerical risk information.…”

General practitioners’ perceptions of public reporting of institution and individual medicine prescribing data

“…Hospital-level public reporting is currently familiar to most clinicians, whereas physician-level reporting is rapidly progressing and becoming increasingly prevalent [2]. In the US, the outcomes data for individual cardiac surgeons have been publicly available in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey since 1991, 1992, and 1994, respectively [3]. Thereafter, an independent newsroom in the US published the nationwide complication rates of nearly 17,000 surgeons in 2005 [1].…”