Variation in Surgical Outcomes for Adolescents and Young Adults With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether hospital type (children’s hospital or generalist hospital) and surgeon specialty are associated with variations in surgical outcomes for hospitalized adolescents and young adults with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) requiring surgery. METHODS: The 2007–2009 Perspective Data Warehouse was used to identify a retrospective cohort study of all inpatients 16 to 25 years old who received surgery for IBD. Multivariate regression, clustered at the hospital level, examined the association of hospital type and surgical specialty with surgical complications and 30-day readmissions. RESULTS: Surgery was performed in 917 hospitalizations of 598 patients across 20 children’s hospitals and 198 general hospitals by 566 general surgeons, 46 pediatric surgeons, and 305 colorectal surgeons. After adjustment, children’s hospitals had higher predicted probabilities of surgical complication (predicted probability [PP]: 35% [95% confidence interval (CI): 28–42]) compared with general hospitals (PP: 26% [95% CI: 23–29]). Despite higher complications among children’s hospitals, pediatric surgeons had lowest predicated probabilities of surgical complication or 30-day readmission (PP: 24% [95% CI: 10–39]) compared with general surgeons (PP: 39% [95% CI: 35–43]) and colorectal surgeons (PP: 35% [95% CI: 28–42]). CONCLUSIONS: Disparate outcomes for adolescents and young adults receiving care in children’s versus generalist hospitals and from different types of surgeons reveal the need to better understand how practice setting and surgical specialty may modify outcomes for a population that traverses a variety of health care settings.