Guide shows link between surgery volume and patient outcome

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A new consumer guide from Missouri health officials shows how often each hospital in the state performs 10 critical procedures, including heart transplants and brain surgeries.

The idea behind the report is to make it easier for Missourians to choose the right hospital when considering surgery.

"It just makes sense to people that if you do more of something, you'll do better at it," said Garland Land, director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services' program that issued the report.

The report, "Show Me 2002 Consumer's Guide to Hospital Surgery Volume," gives the average annual number of procedures each hospital performed from 1998 through 2000.

The report shows that some hospitals average hundreds of these procedures annually, but that others do only a handful, far below the minimum volumes recommended by experts.

"If patients have a choice, and their insurance covers them, and there aren't transportation problems, then I think going to the hospital with the highest volume is a prudent decision," Land said.

The report focused on risky procedures, because those are the ones in which researchers have found big differences in survival between high- and low-volume hospitals.