Many patients prefer to undergo surgery locally even when travel to a regional center would result in lower operative mortality risk. Therefore, policy makers should consider patient preferences when assessing the expected value of regionalizing major surgery.
Although volume-outcome relationships have been reported for many complex surgical procedures, hospital experience is particularly important with pancreaticoduodenectomy. Patients considering this procedure should be given the option of care at a high-volume referral center.
The global surgery workforce is in crisis, yet is poorly characterized by the current English-language literature. There is a critical need for systematically collected, national-level data regarding surgery providers in LMICs to guide improvements in surgery access and care. The Harvard Global Surgery Workforce Initiative and the WHO global surgical workforce database are working to address this need by surveying Ministries of Health and surgical professional organizations around the world.
Hospital volume strongly influences both perioperative risk and long-term survival after pancreaticoduodenectomy. Our data suggest that both patient selection and differences in quality of care may underlie better outcomes at high-volume referral centers.
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