Linking Surgical Expertise with Clinical Outcomes
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Prospective Assessment of Surgical Expertise and Linking this with Clinical Outcomes
IRAS ID
216067
Contact name
Shady Hosny
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
The typical elective patient pathway during a surgical care encounter comprises an outpatient clinic appointment, wherein decision may be made to proceed to an operative procedure followed by a ward stay and finally discharge. The shortest component of their care delivery comprises the operative encounter whereas the focus of the assessment of expertise remains within the domains of technical performance.
Research in the domain of surgical education has led to the development of several validated assessment tools to evaluate the various components of clinical care including technical skills, non-technical skills, ward-round care and outpatient care. Previous studies have focussed on performance assessment using simulation tools before and after repeated use or intervention with statistically significant improved performance on a simulator providing construct validity. Almost all curricula are based on these validated generic global assessment metrics based on an assumption that these quality measures in turn serve as surrogate markers for patient outcomes. Although these tools are a marked change to the more traditional methods, there is no understanding of whether better performance at these assessments results in improved patient care or objective clinical outcomes. A definitive association between these metrics and clinical outcomes has not been robustly established.
This study will explore the link between performance in these objective assessments and the strength of association between pre-, intra-, and post-operative performance and outcome.
Study goals
1. To evaluate the relationship between surgical performance metrics with clinical patient outcomes.REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/0700
Date of REC Opinion
2 May 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion