Profiling Hospitals by Survival of Patients with Colorectal Cancer

OBJECTIVE: To profile hospitals by survival rates of colorectal cancer patients in multiple periods after initial treatment. DATA SOURCES: California Cancer Registry data from 50,544 patients receiving primary surgery with curative intent for stage I-III colorectal cancer in 1994-1998, supplemented with hospital discharge abstracts. STUDY DESIGN: We estimated a single Bayesian hierarchical model to quantify associations of survival to 30 days, 30 days to 1 year, and 1-5 years by hospital, adjusted for patient age, sex, race, stage, tumor site, and comorbidities. We compared two profiling methods for 30-day survival and four longer-term profiling methods by the fractions of hospitals with demonstrably superior survival profiles and of hospital pairs whose relative standings could be established confidently. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Interperiod correlation coefficients of the random effects are (95 percent credible interval 0.27, 0.85), (0.20, 0.76), and (0.19, 0.82). The three-period model ranks 5.4 percent of pairwise comparisons by 30-day survival with at least 95 percent confidence, versus 3.3 percent of pairs using a single-period model, and 15-20 percent by weighted multiperiod methods. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of care for colorectal cancer provided by a hospital system is somewhat consistent across the immediate postoperative and long-term follow-up periods. Combining mortality profiles across longer periods may improve the statistical reliability of outcome comparisons. PMC ID: PMC3087866 (January 6, 2011)