[Method for risk adjustment for surgery for congenital heart disease]

In the last decades, systems have been developed to measure more efficiently and objectively the medical services offered to the community. For this purpose, patients are grouped according to their pathology to facilitate comparison of functionality, costs, and quality among groups. For congenital heart diseases and their surgical treatment we have methods to establish risk stratification (RACHS-1 and Aristotle), which have allowed us to predict the surgical results taking account the congenital heart disease, the kind of repair, as well as factors, such as weight, age, and associated anomalies. We believe that both systems complement each other and that they constitute a first step for Mexico to have a reliable database to allow making comparisons among results of the different health institutes. The purpose is to affect the institutional and national health policies and to assess an instrument that might serve for comparison with foreign specialized centers.