A Surgical Desirability of Outcome Ranking (DOOR) Reveals Complex Relationships between Race/Ethnicity, Insurance Type and Neighborhood Deprivation

OBJECTIVE: Develop an ordinal Desirability of Outcome Ranking (DOOR) for surgical outcomes to examine complex associations of Social Determinants of Health (SDoH).

SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: Studies focused on single or binary composite outcome may not detect health disparities.

METHODS: Three healthcare system cohort study using NSQIP (2013-2019) linked with EHR and risk-adjusted for frailty, Preoperative Acute Serious Conditions (PASC), case status and operative stress assessing associations of multi-level SDoH of race/ethnicity, insurance type (Private 13,957; Medicare 15,198; Medicaid 2,835; Uninsured 2,963) and Area Deprivation Index (ADI) on DOOR and the binary Textbook Outcomes (TO).

RESULTS: Patients living in highly deprived neighborhoods (ADI>85) had higher odds of PASC (aOR=1.13, CI=1.02-1.25, P<0.001) and urgent/emergent cases (aOR=1.23, CI=1.16-1.31, P<0.001). Increased odds of higher/less desirable DOOR scores were associated with patients identifying as Black versus White, and on Medicare, Medicaid or Uninsured versus Private insurance. Patients with ADI>85 had lower odds of TO (aOR=0.91, CI=0.85-0.97, P=0.006) until adjusting for insurance but increased odds of higher DOOR (aOR=1.07, CI=1.01-1.14, P<0.021) after adjusting for insurance but similar odds after adjusting for PASC and urgent/emergent cases.

CONCLUSIONS: DOOR revealed complex interactions between race/ethnicity, insurance type and neighborhood deprivation. ADI>85 was associated with higher odds of worse DOOR outcomes while TO failed to capture the effect of ADI. Our results suggest that presentation acuity is a critical determinant of worse outcomes in patients in highly deprived neighborhoods and without insurance. Including risk adjustment for living in deprived neighborhoods and urgent/emergent surgeries could improve the accuracy of quality metrics.