ArticleSurgery2017
Failure-to-rescue after injury is associated with preventability: The results of mortality panel review of failure-to-rescue cases in trauma.
Article in Surgery, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Failure to rescue as a patient safety indicator for neurosurgical patients: are we there yet? A systematic review.Neurosurgical review · 2023Pooled it
- Trauma center level and postoperative mortality: a nationwide cohort study from South Korea.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- A Predictive Model of Failure to Rescue After Thoracolumbar Fusion.Neurospine · 2023Article
- The evolution of technical prerequisites and local boundary conditions for optimization of mitral valve interventions-Emphasis on skills development and institutional risk performance.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2023Review
- The potential of artificial intelligence to improve patient safety: a scoping review.NPJ digital medicine · 2021Article
- Article
- Article
- Establishing a regional pediatric trauma preventable/potentially preventable death rate.Pediatric surgery international · 2020Article
- Failure to Rescue as an Outcome Metric for Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Programs: Analysis of Data From the IMPACT Registry.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2019Article
- Failure to rescue in surgical patients: A review for acute care surgeons.The journal of trauma and acute care surgery · 2019Review
- Article
- The Location and Timing of Failure-to-Rescue Events Across a Statewide Trauma System.The Journal of surgical research · 2019Observational
- A metric of our own: Failure to rescue after trauma.The journal of trauma and acute care surgery · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFailure-to-rescue is defined as the conditional probability of death after a complication, and the failure-to-rescue rate reflects a center's ability to successfully "rescue" patients after complications. The validity of the failure-to-rescue rate as a quality measure is dependent on the preventability of death and the appropriateness of this measure for use in the trauma population is untested. We sought to evaluate the relationship between preventability and failure-to-rescue in trauma.
methodsAll adjudications from a mortality review panel at an academic level I trauma center from 2005-2015 were merged with registry data for the same time period. The preventability of each death was determined by panel consensus as part of peer review. Failure-to-rescue deaths were defined as those occurring after any registry-defined complication. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models between failure-to-rescue status and preventability were constructed and time to death was examined using survival time analyses.
resultsOf 26,557 patients, 2,735 (10.5%) had a complication, of whom 359 died for a failure-to-rescue rate of 13.2%. Of failure-to-rescue deaths, 272 (75.6%) were judged to be non-preventable, 65 (18.1%) were judged potentially preventable, and 22 (6.1%) were judged to be preventable by peer review. After adjusting for other patient factors, there remained a strong association between failure-to-rescue status and potentially preventable (odds ratio 2.32, 95% confidence interval, 1.47-3.66) and preventable (odds ratio 14.84, 95% confidence interval, 3.30-66.71) judgment.
conclusionDespite a strong association between failure-to-rescue status and preventability adjudication, only a minority of deaths meeting the definition of failure to rescue were judged to be preventable or potentially preventable. Revision of the failure-to-rescue metric before use in trauma care benchmarking is warranted.
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Registered trials
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