Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/576097
CARE DELIVERY 86 the information with his colleagues. "I was stunned by it in that it's a bold step," Dr. Cooper said in an interview with Becker's Hospital Review. "I was impressed just on the basis of sharing it publically. ey did a great job with the data they have. ere are some limitations, but they made a nice effort to risk adjust and use analytics." Another physician, James Kudrna, MD, PhD, orthopedic surgeon with NorthShore Orthopaedic Institute, part of NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston, Ill., had a closer brush with the tool. Dr. Kudrna clocked the lowest adjusted complication rate for hip replacements in the state of Illi- nois, at 1.7 percent. He said he had only heard positive things about the Surgeon Scorecard from his colleagues, but added, "If I were to ex- trapolate, there were likely a few physi- cians who were maybe taken aback by this. e reason for this is depending on where [their] institution is located; the mix of pa- tients is variable. If they are quite sick and haven't had a lot of care available to them or have a lot of comorbidities...e data has to be looked at by what kind of patient pool you treat." However, as Mr. Allen noted, ProPubli- ca's reporters adjusted data for risk and took each surgeon's case mix into account. Trau- ma and high-risk cases were thrown out and statistical methods were used to adjust for age, health, hospital performance and luck. Extremely high raw rates were adjusted downward, assuming some amount of bad luck was involved, and extremely low rates were also adjusted, assuming some amount of good luck was involved. For this reason, the lowest reported rate is 1.1 percent and the highest reported rate is 12.2 percent. Washington's top hip replacement sur- geon, James Crutcher, MD, an orthopedic surgeon with Orthopedic Physician Asso- ciates, which is affiliated with Seattle-based Swedish First Hill Campus, has a 2.0 percent adjusted complication rate. "I became aware of the database a month ago when [a fellow physician] asked me if I'd seen the data and they forwarded it to me. Really, I haven't heard much publicity about it since," Dr. Crutcher said. He added, "It's really early; we haven't felt any impact from this data re- lease at this time." NUMBERS BREAKDOWN 6,019 surgeons rated in ProPublica's analysis 2.3 MM procedures analyzed 63,173 Medicare patients readmitted with complications between 2009 and 2013 11% of surgeons accounted for about 25% of complications