Combining process indicators to evaluate quality of care for surgical patients with colorectal cancer: are scores consistent with short-term outcome?

OBJECTIVE: To determine if composite measures based on process indicators are consistent with short-term outcome indicators in surgical colorectal cancer care.

DESIGN: Longitudinal analysis of consistency between composite measures based on process indicators and outcome indicators for 85 Dutch hospitals.

SETTING: The Dutch Surgical Colorectal Audit database, the Netherlands.

PARTICIPANTS: 4732 elective patients with colon carcinoma and 2239 with rectum carcinoma treated in 85 hospitals were included in the analyses.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: All available process indicators were aggregated into five different composite measures. The association of the different composite measures with risk-adjusted postoperative mortality and morbidity was analysed at the patient and hospital level.

RESULTS: At the patient level, only one of the composite measures was negatively associated with morbidity for rectum carcinoma. At the hospital level, a strong negative association was found between composite measures and hospital mortality and morbidity rates for rectum carcinoma (p<0.05), and hospital morbidity rates for colon carcinoma.

CONCLUSIONS: For individual patients, a high score on the composite measures based on process indicators is not associated with better short-term outcome. However, at the hospital level, a good score on the composite measures based on process indicators was consistent with more favourable risk-adjusted short-term outcome rates.