about EuroSCORE
about EuroSCORE
When an individual patient or doctor considers embarking on a major operation, having a model to predict the likely risk of death provides an essential piece of information to help guide the decision.
EuroSCORE provides this information.
brief history of EuroSCORE
EuroSCORE was created following a collaboration by researchers at Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge UK and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Martinique.
read moresurgical performance with improvements in patient outcomes
Over the last 30 years, there has been a rising level of interest in how well treatment is administered by health care providers. This is measured by comparing actual outcomes with those predicted by a risk model. Cardiac surgery has led the field in these endeavours, and cardiac surgical risk models have been at the leading edge of this new scientific discipline. The result has been a substantial advance in surgical performance with improvements in patient outcomes.
EuroSCORE has become one of the world's leading cardiac risk models
Since its creation in the late 1990s, EuroSCORE has become one of the world's leading cardiac risk models. Its popularity is based on ease of use and accuracy. EuroSCORE stands for the European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation. The name reflects its European origin. Although the underlying database is now global in nature, the name EuroSCORE has been retained because of its wide international recognition.
EuroSCORE is a scoring system which predicts the risk of death for patients considering heart surgery. By taking account of factors related to the patient, the patient's heart condition and the proposed operation, a patient’s EuroSCORE can be calculated. The patient’s EuroSCORE is the probability (expressed as a percentage) of the patient dying during or shortly after the proposed surgery.
EuroSCORE has two uses :
firstly, by providing a reliable prediction of the risk of having surgery, a patient's EuroSCORE can inform discussions between surgeons and their patients discussing treatment options and
secondly, the ability to predict outcomes provides a powerful and accurate tool for measuring the quality and effectiveness of surgery by individual surgeons or hospitals.
crucial for measuring clinical quality and driving up cardiac surgery performance
Some patients are more unwell than others and may need more complex operations, which invalidates any comparisons based on crude, unadjusted outcomes. EuroSCORE provides a mechanism whereby outcomes for patients with quite different risk profiles can be fairly compared, and that is crucial for measuring clinical quality and driving up cardiac surgery performance.
EuroSCORE also provides a way of monitoring the introduction of new techniques
The ability to make fair comparisons between surgeons in the same or different units performing procedures of varying complexity has transformed the effectiveness of cardiac surgery. It also allows surgeons and units to monitor their performance to ensure that they are meeting acceptable standards and to drive correction of any underperformance thus detected. EuroSCORE also provides a way of monitoring the introduction of new techniques. In addition, when risk-adjusted outcome monitoring is established in an institution, patients can take confidence from knowing that their chosen surgeon and hospital are providing the very best levels of care.
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