Kidney failure following vascular or general surgery

When your kidneys lose the ability to remove waste and concentrate urine without losing necessary electrolytes, it is considered kidney failure. When it happens during surgery, it is often due to a sudden decrease of normal blood flow to the kidneys, which is considered acute renal failure (ARF). Usually the kidneys can recover from ARF; however they often remain at an increased risk of failing in the future. This measure evaluates general and vascular surgical procedures.

Surgical procedures entail the risk of complications such as kidney failure. While some patients have higher risks than others, some of these complications may be preventable.   

About this measure

This measure tracks surgical patients who experienced kidney failure after their surgery, based on a sampling methodology developed by the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP).

The rate of general and vascular surgery patients who develop renal failure after surgery is expressed as an odds ratio. This reports the estimated odds of an event happening at Northwestern Memorial compared to the estimated odds of that event happening in all hospitals in the ACS NSQIP database. A number of 1.0 means the hospital is performing as expected. A number less than 1.0 means the hospital is performing better than expected. A number greater than 1.0 means the hospital is performing worse than expected.

Note: While Northwestern Memorial results may be higher or lower than ACS NSQIP comparisons each period, our most recent performance is considered by ACS NSQIP to be "as expected" within the range expected for this surgical outcome.  Given the number of patients in the measure, the results are statistically the same.

In this case, a lower number is better.