Outcome Reports
Columbia Presbyterian Surgery Outcomes Reports
Healthcare information seems to be everywhere these days: on TV, in the newspapers, over the radio and now on the worldwide web.
How does a healthcare consumer or a referring physician know which claims of excellence, compassion, and innovation to believe?
Where does the hype end and the "truth in caring" begin?
One way is to study and judge the facts which all hospitals and physicians are required by law to report in lives preserved or lost and the measure of quality of those lives saved.
The medical community calls these facts "outcomes."
International Center for Health Outcomes and Innovation Research ( InCHOIR ) Research and Information Systems
Annetine C. Gelijns, PhD
Alan J. Moskowitz, MD
Over the past decade, a number of academic medical centers have created units for clinical outcomes research.
InCHOIR would fit within that world—with one huge difference.
InCHOIR is the only U.S. center to focus on surgical outcomes and related issues.
A Physician's Handbook
Life's Options
1999 Cardiothoracic Surgery Outcomes Report |
Our mission is threefold.
The first is clinical outcomes research. In addition to traditional clinical end points, such as mortality, we focus on patient preferences, quality of life and cost-effectiveness.
Our second mission is to devise quality improvement programs on the basis of the data, and the third is to develop policy analysis of issues surrounding the development, introduction and use of medical technology.
Many people think of outcomes research in terms of large data sets, and we, too, use them.
However, our definition includes clinical evaluative research, meaning that we do clinical trials as well as other risk-adjusted studies of outcomes.
The Columbia Presbyterian Department of Surgery has published three surgery outcomes reports: Life's Options, written especially for healthcare consumers, A Physician's Handbook, a companion piece for doctors, and the 1999 Cardiothoracic Surgery Outcomes Report.
These reports document with statistical accuracy patient results attained from numerous types of surgeries performed by the Department over the past 10 years. These are excellent reference tools to empower clinicians and patients to make educated and informed decisions regarding surgery based on unequivocal and unsurpassed results already attained by the Columbia Presbyterian Department of Surgery.
Also highlighted within Life's Options, A Physician's Handbook, and CT Surgery Outcomes are areas where Columbia Presbyterian's Department of Surgery stands out as an industry leader in surgical innovations and research such as off-pump coronary artery bypass, laparoscopy for colonic diseases, pediatric trauma, and pediatric cardiac transplantation.
You may view the contents of these reports by clicking the links on the right. For your own free copies, call the Office of External Affairs at 212.305.0991 and leave your name, address, and phone number on the voice mail.
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