Heart failure & cardiomyopathies

Public Reporting of Heart Transplant Center Performance: Promoting Clarity or Causing Confusion?

JACC Heart FailPublished Retrospective cohort study

Authors' conclusion

The current 5-tier reporting of transplant center performance is highly volatile and has poor reliability and consistency.

Study context

Population
Pediatric and adult heart transplant centers, Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients program-specific reports 2017–2021centers
Participants
112 vs 55
Exposure
Adult vs Pediatric
  • Adultn = 112
  • Pediatricn = 55
Outcome
Stability, volatility and reliability of 3 publicly reported ratings: waitlist survival (WS), faster transplant (FT), post-transplantation graft failure (GF)
Follow-up
2017-2021

Main finding

As reported in the abstract

Rating volatility, agreement and reliability
GroupWaitlist survival (WS) volatility (SD)Graft failure (GF) volatility (SD)Faster transplant (FT) volatility (SD)
Adult0.770.760.57
Pediatric0.790.660.68

Waitlist survival (WS) volatility (SD)

Adult0.77
Pediatric0.79

Graft failure (GF) volatility (SD)

Adult0.76
Pediatric0.66

Faster transplant (FT) volatility (SD)

Adult0.57
Pediatric0.68
Centers with ≥1 rating change in ≥1 tier
98%
Average time to first rating change, all tiers and centers
12-18 months
Fleiss's kappa, all tiers except adult FT (poor agreement/consistency)
<0.20
Intraclass correlation coefficient, all tiers (poor reliability)
<0.50

Observational data: associations, not effects.

Original publication

Public Reporting of Heart Transplant Center Performance: Promoting Clarity or Causing Confusion? JACC Heart Fail. Published 10 April 2024. doi:10.1016/j.jchf.2024.01.021

Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →

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