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Atul A. Gawande

Bio: Atul A. Gawande is an academic researcher from Brigham and Women's Hospital. The author has contributed to research in topics: Checklist & Population. The author has an hindex of 78, co-authored 281 publications receiving 33928 citations. Previous affiliations of Atul A. Gawande include University of Maryland, Baltimore & Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A comprehensive countrywide assessment of surgical capacity in resource-limited settings found severe shortages in available resources in Rwanda.
Abstract: Background: Disparities in the global availability of operating theatres, essential surgical equipment and surgically trained providers are profound. Although efforts are ongoing to increase surgical care and training, little is known about the surgical capacity in developing countries. The aim of this study was to create a baseline for surgical development planning at a national level. Methods: A locally adapted World Health Organization survey was conducted in November 2010 to assess emergency and essential surgical capacity and volumes, with on-site interviews at 44 district and referral hospitals in Rwanda. Results were compiled for education and capacity development discussions with the Rwandan Ministry of Health and the Rwanda Surgical Society. Results: Among 10·1 million people, there were 44 hospitals and 124 operating rooms (1·2 operating rooms per 100 000 persons). There was a total of 50 surgeons practising fullor part-time in Rwanda (0·49 total surgeons per 100 000 persons). The majority of consultant surgeons worked in the capital (covering 10 per cent of the population). Anaesthesia was performed primarily by anaesthesia technicians, and six of 44 hospitals had no trained anaesthesia provider. Continuous availability of electricity, running water and generators was lacking in eight hospitals, and 19 reported an absence or shortage in the availability of pulse oximetry. Equipment for life-saving surgical airway procedures, particularly in children, was lacking. A dedicated emergency area was available in only 19 hospitals. In 2009 and 2010 over 80 000 surgical procedures (major and minor) were recorded annually in Rwanda. Conclusion: A comprehensive countrywide assessment of surgical capacity in resource-limited settings found severe shortages in available resources. Immediate local feedback is a useful tool for creating a baseline of surgical capacity to inform country-specific surgical development.

2 citations

01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: The Internet changes the exercise of quality measure- ment in several ways as mentioned in this paper, such as: quality information will be more readily available, consumers will increasingly use it, and the Internet provides a low-cost, standard platform that will make it vastly easier for providers to collect quality information and pass it on to others.
Abstract: Consumers are eager for information about health. However, their use of such data has been limited to date. When consumers do consider data in making health care choices, they rely more on word-of-mouth reputation than on traditional quality measures, although this information has not necessarily been readily accessible. The Internet changes the exercise of quality measure- ment in several ways. First, quality information—including reputation—will be more readily available. Second, consumers will increasingly use it. Third, the Internet provides a low-cost, standard platform that will make it vastly easier for providers to collect quality information and pass it on to others. However, major barriers still stand in the way of public access to quality information on the Internet as well as of having that access actually improve patients' care.

1 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The new complication classification appears reliable and may represent a compelling tool for quality assessment in surgery in all parts of the world.
Abstract: Growing demand for health care, rising costs, constrained resources, and evidence of variations in clinical practice have triggered interest in measuring and improving the quality of health care delivery. For a valuable quality assessment, relevant data on outcome must be obtained in a standardized and reproducible manner to allow comparison among different centers, between different therapies and within a center over time.1–3 Objective and reliable outcome data are increasingly requested by patients and payers (government or private insurance) to assess quality and costs of health care. Moreover, health policy makers point out that the availability of comparative data on individual hospital's and physician's performance represents a powerful market force, which may contribute to limit the costs of health care while improving quality.4 Conclusive assessments of surgical procedures remain limited by the lack of consensus on how to define complications and to stratify them by severity.1,5–8 In 1992, we proposed general principles to classify complications of surgery based on a therapy-oriented, 4-level severity grading.1 Subsequently, the severity grading was refined and applied to compare the results of laparoscopic versus open cholecystectomy9 and liver transplantation.10 This classification has also been used by others11–13 and was recently suggested to serve as the basis to assess the outcome of living related liver transplantation in the United States (J. Trotter, personal communication). However, the classification system has not yet been widely used in the surgical literature. The strength of the previous classification relied on the principle of grading complications based on the therapy used to treat the complication. This approach allows identification of most complications and prevents down-rating of major negative outcomes. This is particularly important in retrospective analyses. However, we felt that modifications were necessary, particularly in grading life-threatening complications and long-term disability due to a complication. We also felt that the duration of the hospital stay can no longer be used as a criterion to grade complications. Although definitions of negative outcomes rely to a large extend on subjective “value” appraisals, the grading system must be tested in a large cohort of patients. Finally, a classification is useful only if widely accepted and applied throughout different countries and surgical cultures. Such a validation was not done with the previous classification. Therefore, the aim of the current study was 3-fold: first, to propose an improved classification of surgical complications based on our experience gained with the previous classification1; second, to test this classification in a large cohort of patients who underwent general surgery; and third, to assess the reproducibility and acceptability of the classification through an international survey.

23,435 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The overall cancer death rate dropped continuously from 1991 to 2016 by a total of 27%, translating into approximately 2,629,200 fewer cancer deaths than would have been expected if death rates had remained at their peak.
Abstract: Each year, the American Cancer Society estimates the numbers of new cancer cases and deaths that will occur in the United States and compiles the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival. Incidence data, available through 2015, were collected by the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program; the National Program of Cancer Registries; and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. Mortality data, available through 2016, were collected by the National Center for Health Statistics. In 2019, 1,762,450 new cancer cases and 606,880 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States. Over the past decade of data, the cancer incidence rate (2006-2015) was stable in women and declined by approximately 2% per year in men, whereas the cancer death rate (2007-2016) declined annually by 1.4% and 1.8%, respectively. The overall cancer death rate dropped continuously from 1991 to 2016 by a total of 27%, translating into approximately 2,629,200 fewer cancer deaths than would have been expected if death rates had remained at their peak. Although the racial gap in cancer mortality is slowly narrowing, socioeconomic inequalities are widening, with the most notable gaps for the most preventable cancers. For example, compared with the most affluent counties, mortality rates in the poorest counties were 2-fold higher for cervical cancer and 40% higher for male lung and liver cancers during 2012-2016. Some states are home to both the wealthiest and the poorest counties, suggesting the opportunity for more equitable dissemination of effective cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment strategies. A broader application of existing cancer control knowledge with an emphasis on disadvantaged groups would undoubtedly accelerate progress against cancer.

16,028 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Slow momentum for some cancers amenable to early detection is juxtaposed with notable gains for other common cancers, and it is notable that long‐term rapid increases in liver cancer mortality have attenuated in women and stabilized in men.
Abstract: Each year, the American Cancer Society estimates the numbers of new cancer cases and deaths that will occur in the United States and compiles the most recent data on population-based cancer occurrence. Incidence data (through 2016) were collected by the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program; the National Program of Cancer Registries; and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. Mortality data (through 2017) were collected by the National Center for Health Statistics. In 2020, 1,806,590 new cancer cases and 606,520 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States. The cancer death rate rose until 1991, then fell continuously through 2017, resulting in an overall decline of 29% that translates into an estimated 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths than would have occurred if peak rates had persisted. This progress is driven by long-term declines in death rates for the 4 leading cancers (lung, colorectal, breast, prostate); however, over the past decade (2008-2017), reductions slowed for female breast and colorectal cancers, and halted for prostate cancer. In contrast, declines accelerated for lung cancer, from 3% annually during 2008 through 2013 to 5% during 2013 through 2017 in men and from 2% to almost 4% in women, spurring the largest ever single-year drop in overall cancer mortality of 2.2% from 2016 to 2017. Yet lung cancer still caused more deaths in 2017 than breast, prostate, colorectal, and brain cancers combined. Recent mortality declines were also dramatic for melanoma of the skin in the wake of US Food and Drug Administration approval of new therapies for metastatic disease, escalating to 7% annually during 2013 through 2017 from 1% during 2006 through 2010 in men and women aged 50 to 64 years and from 2% to 3% in those aged 20 to 49 years; annual declines of 5% to 6% in individuals aged 65 years and older are particularly striking because rates in this age group were increasing prior to 2013. It is also notable that long-term rapid increases in liver cancer mortality have attenuated in women and stabilized in men. In summary, slowing momentum for some cancers amenable to early detection is juxtaposed with notable gains for other common cancers.

15,080 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The combined cancer death rate dropped continuously from 1991 to 2015 by a total of 26%, translating to approximately 2,378,600 fewer cancer deaths than would have been expected if death rates had remained at their peak.
Abstract: Each year, the American Cancer Society estimates the numbers of new cancer cases and deaths that will occur in the United States and compiles the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival. Incidence data, available through 2014, were collected by the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program; the National Program of Cancer Registries; and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. Mortality data, available through 2015, were collected by the National Center for Health Statistics. In 2018, 1,735,350 new cancer cases and 609,640 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States. Over the past decade of data, the cancer incidence rate (2005-2014) was stable in women and declined by approximately 2% annually in men, while the cancer death rate (2006-2015) declined by about 1.5% annually in both men and women. The combined cancer death rate dropped continuously from 1991 to 2015 by a total of 26%, translating to approximately 2,378,600 fewer cancer deaths than would have been expected if death rates had remained at their peak. Of the 10 leading causes of death, only cancer declined from 2014 to 2015. In 2015, the cancer death rate was 14% higher in non-Hispanic blacks (NHBs) than non-Hispanic whites (NHWs) overall (death rate ratio [DRR], 1.14; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.13-1.15), but the racial disparity was much larger for individuals aged <65 years (DRR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.29-1.32) compared with those aged ≥65 years (DRR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.06-1.09) and varied substantially by state. For example, the cancer death rate was lower in NHBs than NHWs in Massachusetts for all ages and in New York for individuals aged ≥65 years, whereas for those aged <65 years, it was 3 times higher in NHBs in the District of Columbia (DRR, 2.89; 95% CI, 2.16-3.91) and about 50% higher in Wisconsin (DRR, 1.78; 95% CI, 1.56-2.02), Kansas (DRR, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.25-1.81), Louisiana (DRR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.38-1.60), Illinois (DRR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.39-1.57), and California (DRR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.38-1.54). Larger racial inequalities in young and middle-aged adults probably partly reflect less access to high-quality health care. CA Cancer J Clin 2018;68:7-30. © 2018 American Cancer Society.

14,011 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2009-Thyroid
TL;DR: Evidence-based recommendations are developed to inform clinical decision-making in the management of thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer and represent, in the authors' opinion, contemporary optimal care for patients with these disorders.
Abstract: Background: Thyroid nodules are a common clinical problem, and differentiated thyroid cancer is becoming increasingly prevalent. Since the American Thyroid Association's (ATA's) guidelines for the management of these disorders were revised in 2009, significant scientific advances have occurred in the field. The aim of these guidelines is to inform clinicians, patients, researchers, and health policy makers on published evidence relating to the diagnosis and management of thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer. Methods: The specific clinical questions addressed in these guidelines were based on prior versions of the guidelines, stakeholder input, and input of task force members. Task force panel members were educated on knowledge synthesis methods, including electronic database searching, review and selection of relevant citations, and critical appraisal of selected studies. Published English language articles on adults were eligible for inclusion. The American College of Physicians Guideline Gr...

10,501 citations