Clinical Benchmark for Gastric Stapling Procedures

To help answer the call to cut costs of surgical care, hospitals and physicians have joined to compare methods of care for the more common Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) diagnoses to form a Benchmark. Since many bariatric surgeons are the only ones performing this surgery in their primary hospitals, they do not have two or more surgical routines for comparison. This presentation compares data for the preoperative work-up, operating-room, and methods of postoperative care used by 29 members of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery (ASBS). There was representation of both academic and private surgeons and hospitals. To target areas for possible savings, the hospital bills of 16 patients without complication were compared. The synthesis of this information revealed significant differences in the extent and cost of preoperative work-up, antibiotic coverage, other postoperative care, and length of stay. These differences are examined under the assumption that patient outcome was the same.