Mortality analysis of a surgical unit

ABSTRACT

The progress in surgery has largely been due the recent emphasis on audit and analysis. This has become the cornerstone of evidence - based medicine. We retrospectively analyzed data for the year 2002 with the view to determine the rate and causes of mortality in our general surgical unit. In a total of 2771 admissions, 173 patients expired. The most frequent group was trauma and the most frequent cause was burn i.e. 34.1%. The burnt patients were predominantly females. FAI and stabs also figured prominently. Among them 52.1% patients had septicaemia resulting in multi-organ system failure as the final common pathway. With our current analysis we were able to establish guidelines in the subsequent year, which helped us achieve a better patient care and a resulting lower mortality. Hence we conclude that recording and analyzing mortality is a way of testing the diagnostic and therapeutic efficacy in a quest for a high quality of care