Examining Causes of Racial Disparities in General Surgical Mortality: Hospital Quality Versus Patient Risk.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Racial disparities in general surgical outcomes are known to exist but not well understood.

Objectives

To determine if black-white disparities in general surgery mortality for Medicare patients are attributable to poorer health status among blacks on admission or differences in the quality of care provided by the admitting hospitals.

Research design

Matched cohort study using Tapered Multivariate Matching.

Subjects

All black elderly Medicare general surgical patients (N=18,861) and white-matched controls within the same 6 states or within the same 838 hospitals.

Measures

Thirty-day mortality (primary); others include in-hospital mortality, failure-to-rescue, complications, length of stay, and readmissions.

Results

Matching on age, sex,

SUBMITTER: Silber JH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5657388 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature