JAMA Surgical Publishes Investigation of Top-Ranking Hospitals and Patient Outcomes

The University of California Irvine Medical Center Department of Surgery wanted to find out if hospitals named by U.S. News & World Report as top ranking in gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgical procedures were associated with improvements in patient outcomes compared to non-ranked hospitals when it came to common advanced laparoscopic abdominal operations.

The team looked at 51,869 advanced laparoscopic abdominal operations at academic health centers and their affiliates. Of these, 31.4% were done at 41 top-ranked hospitals and 68.6% at 310 non-ranked hospitals. 

They found that top-ranked hospitals performed three times as many advanced laparoscopic abdominal operations than non-ranked hospitals, but there were no significant differences in patient outcomes. 

Read more about the investigation here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2738657