Surgeons refuse to operate to keep their personal statistics clean.
the verdict
REFUTED
the evidence says no
confidence 10/100
Empirical studies evaluating the impact of public surgeon report cards and outcome tracking have found no evidence that surgeons refuse to operate or become risk-averse to protect their personal statistics.
Evidence against · 2
Reporting individual surgeon outcomes does not lead to risk aversion in abdominal aortic aneurysm surgery.
2017 · cited by 0
This study investigated whether reporting individual surgeon outcomes for aneurysm surgery leads to risk aversion and found no evidence that surgeons became risk-averse in their patient selection.
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More against · 1
Effect of public reporting of surgeons' outcomes on patient selection, "gaming," and mortality in colorectal cancer surgery in England: population based cohort study.
2018 · cited by 0
This large population-based cohort study found that the introduction of public outcome reporting for colorectal surgeons did not lead to risk-averse clinical practice or gaming of data.