Ninety-Day Risk-Standardized Home Time as a Performance Metric for Cardiac Surgery Hospitals in the United States

Amgad Mentias, Milind Y. Desai, Neil Keshvani, A. Marc Gillinov, Douglas Johnston, Dharam J. Kumbhani, Sameer A. Hirji, Mary Vaughan Sarrazin, Marwan Saad, Eric D. Peterson, Michael J. Mack, Peter Cram, Saket Girotra, Samir Kapadia, Lars Svensson, Ambarish Pandey

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: Assessing hospital performance for cardiac surgery necessitates consistent and valid care quality metrics. The association of hospital-level risk-standardized home time for cardiac surgeries with other performance metrics such as mortality rate, readmission rate, and annual surgical volume has not been evaluated previously. Methods: The study included Medicare beneficiaries who underwent isolated or concomitant coronary artery bypass graft, aortic valve, or mitral valve surgery from January 1, 2013, to October 1, 2019. Hospital-level performance metrics of annual surgical volume, 90-day risk-standardized mortality rate, 90-day risk-standardized readmission rate, and 90-day risk-standardized home time were estimated starting from the day of surgery using generalized linear mixed models with a random intercept for the hospital. Correlations between the performance metrics were assessed using the Pearson correlation coefficient. Patient-level clinical outcomes were also compared across hospital quartiles by 90-day risk-standardized home time. Last, the temporal stability of performance metrics for each hospital during the study years was also assessed. Results: Overall, 919 698 patients (age 74.2±5.8 years, 32% women) were included from 1179 hospitals. Median 90-day risk-standardized home time was 71.2 days (25th-75th percentile, 66.5-75.6), 90-day risk-standardized readmission rate was 26.0% (19.5%-35.7%), and 90-day risk-standardized mortality rate was 6.0% (4.0%-8.8%). Across 90-day home time quartiles, a graded decline was observed in the rates of in-hospital, 90-day, and 1-year mortality, and 90-day and 1-year readmission. Ninety-day home time had a significant positive correlation with annual surgical volume (r=0.31; P<0.001) and inverse correlation with 90-day risk-standardized readmission rate (r=-0.40; P <0.001) and 90-day risk-standardized mortality rate (r=-0.60; P <0.001). Use of 90-day home time as a performance metric resulted in a meaningful reclassification in performance ranking of 22.8% hospitals compared with annual surgical volume, 11.6% compared with 90-day risk-standardized mortality rate, and 19.9% compared with 90-day risk-standardized readmission rate. Across the 7 years of the study period, 90-day home time demonstrated the most temporal stability of the hospital performance metrics. Conclusions: Ninety-day risk-standardized home time is a feasible, comprehensive, patient-centered metric to assess hospital-level performance in cardiac surgery with greater temporal stability than mortality and readmission measures.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1297-1309
Number of pages13
JournalCirculation
Volume146
Issue number17
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 25 2022

Keywords

  • cardiac surgery
  • health metrics
  • mortality
  • patient readmission
  • quality indicators

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
  • Physiology (medical)

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