What the Surgeon Needs to Know About Databases

Data collection is one of the most important instruments of any quality improvement initiatives. We have selected, summarized, and discussed 5 recent contributions mostly based on large international databases, which we considered most relevant to our specialty. They focused on different aspects: the selection and rigorous definition of the variables contained in the data set, the evaluation of a treatment or a pathway of care by the analysis of the observed outcomes, the identification of risk factors able to affect the surgical course, the measurement of the quality provided by a care giver, and the assessment of the quality of the data collected and the planning of quality improvement activities.