RT Journal
A1 Frencher S, Jr, Bilimoria KY, Ko C
T1 BAriatric surgery outcomes at designated centers of excellence vs nondesignated programs—invited critique
JF Archives of Surgery
JO Archives of Surgery
YR 2009
FD April 1
VO 144
IS 4
SP 325
OP 325
DO 10.1001/archsurg.2009.18
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.2009.18
AB 
Clearly, outcome is an important issue for improving most types of medical care. Studies using administrative data, such as the current one, frequently use inpatient mortality as the outcome because it is available and well coded in administrative discharge databases. However, if the bariatric surgeon and patient communities had their druthers, a number of equally, if not more, meaningful outcomes would probably be used to measure the quality of bariatric surgery. At the current time, bariatric procedures have become markedly safer, with substantially lower inpatient mortality rates compared with reports from years past. So, to evaluate the quality of a bariatric surgery program, other outcomes such as weight loss, patient satisfaction, quality of life, and functional status should probably be used in addition to hospital mortality.