Abstract
Background: A significant roadblock in surgical education research has been the inability to compare trainee performance to the outcomes of those surgeons after they enter independent practice. We describe the feasibility of an innovative method to link trainee performance data with patient outcomes. Methods: We extracted surgeon NPI numbers from Medicare claims data for common general surgery procedures between 2007 and 2017. Next, American Board of Surgery (ABS) trainee performance data was cross-referenced with additional resources to supplement NPI data. The patient and trainee datasets were linked using NPI number and a linkage rate was calculated. Results: We identified 12,952 unique surgeons in the Medicare file. Medicare surgeons were matched with ABS records by NPI number, with 96.2% (n = 12,460) of surgeons linked successfully. Conclusions: We demonstrated a novel process to link patient outcomes to trainee performance. This innovation can enable future research investigating the relationship between surgical trainee performance and patient outcomes in independent practice.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1072-1078 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | American journal of surgery |
| Volume | 222 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was support by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [ K08HS027653-01A1 ] and the National Institutes of Health [ 5T32DK108740-05 ].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Inc.
Keywords
- Graduate medical education
- Patient outcomes
- Surgical education
- Trainee competence
