Pneumonia following vascular or general surgery

This measure evaluates general and vascular surgical procedures.

Pneumonia is an infection in one or both lungs that causes them to fill up with fluid or pus. Symptoms of pneumonia include coughing, fever, chills and trouble breathing. Sometimes the cause of pneumonia is unknown or it may occur as a complication of another procedure. This measure evaluates general and vascular surgical procedures.  

About this measure

This measure tracks surgical patients who experienced pneumonia 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 have pneumonia 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 "need improvement" for this surgical outcome. Given the number of patients in the measure, the results are statistically worse than expected.

In this case, a lower number is better.