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This JAMA Guide to Statistics and Methods details the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP) participant use file data set for quality and outcomes reporting.
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This chapter details important considerations for quality and outcomes reporting in bariatric surgery with the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP) participant use file (PUF) data set. In 2012, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) merged their respective bariatric surgery accreditation programs into a single unified program, the MBSAQIP.1 This program is responsible for accrediting inpatient and outpatient bariatric surgery centers in the United States and Canada. To date, 780 bariatric surgery programs are MBSAQIP-accredited; together, these account for 94% of bariatric programs in these countries.1 As part of accreditation, centers are required to input prospectively collected patient data into the MBSAQIP national data registry platform.2
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Every metabolic and bariatric operation and intervention performed at an MBSAQIP-accredited center, including primary operations, reoperations, reinterventions, and endoluminal therapeutic interventions, must be captured within the MBSAQIP data registry. Data entry is performed by rigorously trained metabolic and bariatric surgical clinical reviewers via patient medical record review. The data registry collects prospective, clinically rich data on more than 200 preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative variables with standardized definitions.2 Longitudinal patient data are collected at 30-day, 6-month, and 1-year points and yearly thereafter. More than 150 000 bariatric cases are captured annually within this data registry. To ensure high-quality data, MBSAQIP conducts data integrity audits of participating centers. Collected data are then adjusted for risk and reliability across centers.2
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In January 2017, the inaugural participant use file (PUF) (Box 9) from the MBSAQIP data registry was made available to participating MBSAQIP centers. This PUF was released for the express purpose of providing researchers a data resource to investigate and advance the quality of care delivered to patients undergoing metabolic and bariatric surgeries.
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BOX 9 Attributes of MBSAQIP Data
The MBSAQIP PUF captures high-quality, validated data from more than 90% of the bariatric procedures performed in the United States and Canada.
This data set is an important resource for capturing 30-day outcomes, particularly for low-frequency events.
When considering this data set for use in research, it is important to note that the PUF contains deidentified, patient-level, aggregated data and does not provide data on individual hospitals, clinicians, and patients.
This data set may not be linked to other existing data sets and patients cannot be longitudinally tracked across years.
Consideration should be given to ensure appropriate statistical methodology, particularly for handling missing data in variables with a high level of performance inconsistency.
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DATA CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE MBSAQIP PARTICIPANT USE FILE
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All metabolic and bariatric ...