Quality measures improve outcomes more than hospital volume alone (USA)

"A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and Baystate Medical Centre at Tufts University in Massachusetts concludes that patients facing coronary artery bypass surgery should, as a first priority, select a medical facility that has the highest adherence to quality standards. The research team sought to determine how volume among individual surgeons, volume differences between hospitals, and differences in quality of care might influence outcomes following coronary artery bypass surgery. According to the researchers, care from high-volume centres or surgeons has been associated with better outcomes post-operatively, but how volume and quality of care were related has not been well understood. 'You could go to the busiest doctor, as many people do,' said study author Andrew Auerbach, MD, MPH, associate clinical professor of medicine at UCSF and director of research for the Division of Hospital Medicine. 'But how busy the surgeon is may not matter as much as his or her team's adherence to quality measures.' The study, 'Shop for Quality or Volume? Volume, Quality, and Outcomes of Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery,' is published in the 19 May 2009 edition of Annals of Internal Medicine."