Potential patient harms from misinterpretation of publically reported surgical outcomes
Objective To determine how the general public interprets surgical complication rates presented from a publicly available online surgical‐rating website. Subjects and Methods An in‐person electronic survey was administered at the local State Fair to a convenience sample. Participants were presented w...
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Published in | BJU international Vol. 123; no. 1; pp. 180 - 186 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
01.01.2019
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Objective
To determine how the general public interprets surgical complication rates presented from a publicly available online surgical‐rating website.
Subjects and Methods
An in‐person electronic survey was administered at the local State Fair to a convenience sample. Participants were presented with a representative output from an online surgeon‐rating website and were asked to choose from three statistically equivalent surgeons for a hypothetical medical decision. We then suggested that their insurance company would only cover one surgeon and probed their willingness to pay to switch surgeons for a small chance of lowering the risk of a complication (0.7%, 95% confidence interval [CI] −8.1% to 9.5%, P = 0.9). We quantified the characteristics of those willing to switch, the degree of misinterpretation, and the subsequent potential patient harms.
Results
There were 343 completed responses. When presented with a hypothetical healthcare decision, most participants (n = 209, 61%) said they were willing to pay out‐of‐pocket expenses to switch to a statistically equivalent surgeon. Those who were willing to pay to switch surgeons were more likely to be older (odds ratio [OR] 1.02, 95% CI 1.01–1.03), poorer (OR 1.81, 95% CI 1.07–3.11), previously had cancer (OR 5.9, 95% CI 1.9–25), and misinterpreted the data (OR 3.03, 95% CI 1.87–4.96). Those who were willing to pay out‐of‐pocket expenses were more inaccurate in their estimation of surgeon complication rates (mean estimate 34.0% vs 8.9%, P < 0.001, correct rate = 3.6%), and on average were willing to pay $6 494 (95% CI 4 108–8 880).
Conclusion
Understanding of a publicly reported surgical‐complication website is often prone to misinterpretation by the general population and may lead to patient harm from a financial aspect. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1464-4096 1464-410X |
DOI: | 10.1111/bju.14367 |