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To the Editor: Dr Dimick and colleagues¹ recently emphasized the challenge of measuring surgical performance in the face of the pervasive problem of small sample size. We additionally note that classic statistics, developed to test differences between random samples, do not apply to hospital populations. The 95% confidence interval (CI), a frequent measure of precision that reflects variability among samples, is the range within which means are expected to fall 95 times if sampling is repeated 100 times. However, there is never a way of repeating a 1-year experience for an operation 100 times without changing conditions, population, and physicians. The CI for the specific operative mortality of an individual hospital is usually wide because of small numbers, so that even in a recognized example of poor performance (the Bristol case for pediatric cardiac surgery, based on a careful analysis of data from many years²), the CI for . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Mayer Brezis, MD, MPH
brezis@vms.huji.ac.il

Avraham Oren, MD
Center for Quality & Safety
Hadassah University Hospital
Jerusalem, Israel

RELATED ARTICLE

Surgical Mortality as an Indicator of Hospital Quality: The Problem With Small Sample Size
Justin B. Dimick, H. Gilbert Welch, and John D. Birkmeyer
JAMA. 2004;292(7):847-851.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT