Using Patient-Centric Quality Information to Unlock Hidden Health Care Capabilities

Abstract

We document a wide variation in quality among 188 surgeons at 35 hospitals in New York state that perform mitral valve surgery. Our analysis shows that patients of different demographics and levels of acuity benefit differently from elite surgeons. However, existing healthcare provider quality information is based on population averages and so does not differentiate patients of different medical conditions. This implies that patient-centric quality information, which calibrates outcome statistics by patient demographics and acuity, can increase the ability of patients to choose the most appropriate surgeon. In this paper, we develop an approach for computing patient-centric information from outcome data and evaluate the potential health benefits from using such information to guide patients to surgeons. We estimate that the total societal benefits from using patient-centric information are comparable to those achievable by enabling the best surgeons to treat 40% more patients under population-average information.