Plastic Surgery Mortality: An 11-Year, Single-Institution Experience

Area of Science:

• Surgical Outcomes Research
• Plastic Surgery Epidemiology
• Patient Safety Metrics

Background:

• Systematic mortality data reporting is insufficient in plastic surgery.
• Existing literature focuses on procedure-specific adverse events, not overall mortality.
• Lack of mortality data hinders the rational impact assessment of patient safety initiatives.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically report mortality data within a large academic plastic surgery service.
• To establish a baseline for mortality rates to inform patient safety efforts.
• To contribute the largest reported series of mortality data from a single academic plastic surgery service.

Main Methods:

• Prospective, monthly updated patient outcome data collection over 11 years (2000-2011).
• Digitization of paper records into a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant database.
• Review of cases across 5 surgical services in 4 hospitals within the department.

Main Results:

• A total of 60,834 cases were performed between 2000 and 2011.
• 829 (1.4%) negative outcome reports were identified.
• 25 cases (0.04%) resulted in death (24) or brain death (1), primarily due to cardiopulmonary causes, organ failure, or sepsis.

Conclusions:

• This study represents the largest reported series of mortality data from a single academic plastic surgery service.
• The findings provide essential data on mortality rates in plastic surgery.
• The data can guide the development and evaluation of patient safety strategies in the field.