VASQIP - sporedata/researchdesigneR GitHub Wiki

General description

The Veteran Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement Program (VASQIP) is a surgical dataset created from electronic medical record of VA veterans. It contains preoperative, intraoperative, postoperative, and follow-up data for a full 30 days after surgery (regardless of the duration of the postoperative in-hospital length of stay). These data are obtained on an 8-day cycle (up to a maximum of 36 cases per cycle), by trained local nurses, ultimately providing a more representative sample of cases performed at each hospital.

VASQIP can be easily linked to each patient’s information in more than 60 other VA data sources or to Medicare claims for patients receiving part of their care outside of the VA.

Variable categories

The dataset includes more than 200 variables, with 78 of them having been manually abstracted. General categories include:

• Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code information and ten other CPT codes for concurrently performed procedures.
• Patient demographic information;
• Preoperative and intraoperative variables based on standardized definitions;
  • time and date stamps for the start and end of the operation,
  • type of administered anesthesia, presence of trainees such as residents and fellows,
  • wound classification,
  • associated relative value units (RVUs).
• Postoperative variables and followup for a full 30 days after surgery;
  • mortality,
  • morbidity - a standardized set of 22 different postoperative complications of varying severity,
  • re-operation,
  • readmission,
• Laboratory values
• A synthetic hospital-identifier along with an operative complexity level, allowing for hospital-level analyses. These include ambulatory surgery center (basic or complex) or inpatient facility (standard, intermediate, or complex).

Limitations

• VASQIP database does not provide detailed follow-up to analyze any symptom or radiographic recurrence.

Related publications

• VASQIP practical guide
• Outcomes of Paraesophageal Hernia Repair: Analysis of the Veterans Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement Program Database
• Assessing Preoperative Frailty Utilizing Validated Geriatric Mortality Calculators and Their Association With Postoperative Hip Fracture Mortality Risk

Data access

More information about VASQIP can be found at https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/veterans-affairs-surgical-quality-improvement-program-vasqip