Repeat surgery after lumbar decompression for herniated disc: the quality implications of hospital and surgeon variation.

ABSTRACT:

Background context

Repeat lumbar spine surgery is generally an undesirable outcome. Variation in repeat surgery rates may be because of patient characteristics, disease severity, or hospital- and surgeon-related factors. However, little is known about population-level variation in reoperation rates.

Purpose

To examine hospital- and surgeon-level variation in reoperation rates after lumbar herniated disc surgery and to relate these to published benchmarks.

Study design/setting

Retrospective analysis of a discharge registry including all nonfederal hospitals in Washington State.

Methods

We identified adults who underwent an initial inpatient lumbar decompression for herniated disc from 1997 to 2007. We then performed generalized linear mixed-effect logistic regre

SUBMITTER: Martin BI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3299929 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature