The University of California's five medical centers have collected and pooled cardiac surgery data for more than a decade, allowing the system to streamline care and improve financial margins. Subsequent data analysis has resulted in 132 bed days saved and a financial margin improvement of about $15 million.
The University of California Cardiac Surgery Consortium was founded by Richard Shemin, MD, in 2012. Each center in the consortium uploads clinical data every quarter, which Biome Analytics then analyzes for single-site and systemwide outcomes, according to a Jan. 17 news release from Los Angeles-based UCLA Health.
The consortium performs about 4,000 cardiac surgeries every year. Between 2015 and 2023, clinical outcomes for coronary artery bypass grafting, such as extubation, blood utilization and readmission rates, improved.
Blood product utilization decreased by 8.26%, the rate of early extubation increased by 22%, average initial ventilator hours decreased by 1.5 hours, median length of stay in the ICU decreased by 0.38 days and 30-day readmissions decreased by 3.96%.
Based on a cost savings analysis, early extubation resulted in a margin improvement of about $6.7 million and decreased ventilation resulted in a margin improvement of about $3.6 million, the release said.