Hospital Report Cards TM Bariatric Surgery Methodology 2007-2008 4
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© Copyright 2007 Health Grades, Inc. All rights reserved.
May not be reprinted or reproduced without permission from Health Grades, Inc.
Limitations of the Data Models
It must be understood that while these models may be valuable in identifying hospitals that perform better than
others, one should not use this information alone to determine the quality of care provided at each hospital. The
models are limited by the following factors:
·
Cases may have been coded incorrectly or incompletely by the hospital.
·
The models can only account for risk factors that are coded into the billing dataif a particular risk factor was
not coded into the billing data, such as a patient's socioeconomic status and health behavior, then it was not
accounted for with these models.
·
Although Health Grades, Inc. has taken steps to carefully compile these data using its methodology, no
techniques are infallible, and therefore some information may be missing, outdated or incorrect.
Please note that a high ranking for a particular hospital is not a recommendation or endorsement by Health Grades,
Inc. of a particular hospital; it means that the data associated with a particular hospital has met the foregoing
qualifications. Only individual patients can decide whether a particular hospital is suited for their unique needs.
Also note that if more than one hospital reported to CMS under a single provider ID, healthgrades analyzed patient
outcome data for those hospitals as a single unit. Throughout this document, therefore, "hospital" refers to one
hospital or a group of hospitals reporting under a single provider ID.
References
1
Buchwald, H. et al., Bariatric Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA. 2004; 92: 17241737.
2
Santry HP, Gillen DL, Lauderdale DS. Trends in bariatric surgical procedures.JAMA.2005;294:1909-1917.
3
Nguyen NT, Paya M, Stevens CM, et al. The relationship between hospital volume and outcome in Bariatric
surgery at academic medical centers. Ann of Surg. 2004;240(4):586-594.
