Cochrane: We reviewed the evidence about the effect of providing information
about a surgeon's performance to people who are thinking of having elective surgery. Elective surgery is defined as "surgery of a non emergency
nature; although recommended, it can be scheduled in advance without
affecting the health of the patient or the expected result of the
procedure" (Dox 2004, p. 452).
Background
Measuring the performance of surgeons is generally thought to be a
good practice that will result in better surgical results. Providing
information about the performance of individual surgeons is more
controversial and it is not clear what effect giving consumers this
information might have. We wanted to discover whether there was any
evidence about the effect of making data about a surgeon's performance available to people who are thinking about having elective surgery, compared with people making similar decisions without this information.
Key results
There have been studies on ways of collecting and reporting
information about the performance of surgeons, but we did not find any
studies published before March 2014 that looked at the effect of this
information on consumers.
This lack of evidence may reflect the practical difficulties and
ethical issues involved in researching this topic. For example, surgeons
might not be willing to take part in such studies. There might also be
legal or ethical problems with providing only some patients with
information about a surgeon's performance. However, it would be helpful
to have more information to inform debate on this topic. Qualitative
studies are needed that explore the attitudes of consumers and
professionals towards providing this type of information, and their
beliefs about potential effects.