Low Reliability of Complications and Patient Satisfaction Measures among Surgeons Performing Common Surgical Procedures

Outcomes of complications and patient satisfaction are frequently used to evaluate surgeons, but this study finds that these measures have low reliability. The research involved 333 surgeons who performed cholecystectomy, colectomy, and hernia repair on 23,533 patients. The reliability of complication rates was only 0.27, while the reliability of high satisfaction rates was 0.53. Reliability increased with case volume, but the majority of surgeons did not have enough cases to achieve acceptable reliability. These findings suggest that current outcomes measures may not provide meaningful information for decision-making.