MGH Temporarily Closes Pediatric Surgery Program
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The Boston Globe reported that Massachusetts General Hospital has temporarily stopped its pediatric cardiac surgery program. This comes after two babies suffered serious complications, one experiencing neurological damage, after surgical errors were made during open-heart surgery. State public health officials are currently investigating the two cases.
The suspension of this program calls into question whether small surgery programs actually stand up to their larger counterparts, where nurses and doctors are able to hone their skills by caring for a large quantity of patients.
In Boston, Children's Hospital operates on the hearts of about 1,100 babies and children a year, making it the largest pediatric heart surgery program in the country, officials there said. Mass. General performed 90 pediatric heart surgeries in the last 20 months, while Tufts Medical Center did 24 last year.
For adult heart surgeries, state health officials recommend a minimum of 300 cases a year, but there is no such minimum standard set for pediatric surgeries.
There is no conclusive evidence that smaller programs fair worse than larger surgical programs, though some studies suggest that the results for the smaller programs are more variable. However, because the data is not conclusive, it is difficult to force these small programs to close because many have achieved favorable results.
Dr. Peter Manning, director of cardiothoracic surgery at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, explained that with surgical cases falling below the 100 mark, like MGH's, surgeons run the risk of not performing enough surgeries to keep up their skills.
State health officials will examine MGH's internal reviews and decide from there whether to conduct an on-site investigation.