Interhospital Transfer in Emergency General Surgery: How are we Doing

Presenter: Dr. Cindy Teng (advisors: Drs. Matthew Rosengart/Jeremy Kahn/Joshua Brown)

Interhospital transfers are common for patients with emergency general surgery (EGS) conditions. Although appropriate interhospital transfers are critical to successful EGS care, the performance of EGS transfer systems remains unclear. Dr. Teng's group's first objective was to describe EGS transfer patterns and identify factors associated with potentially avoidable transfers to guide improvements in care delivery. Using a network analysis approach, their second objective was to determine if patients with EGS conditions are consistently directed to hospitals with more resources and better EGS outcomes, as expected in effective regionalized systems.