Abstract
Bariatric surgery is the only effective treatment for severe obesity and the associated comorbidities, an increasingly common syndrome that afflicts eight million Americans who have a body mass index (BMI) >40. Currently less than one percent of these individuals have access to the surgery that could free them of diabetes, sleep apnea, cardiopulmonary failure, pseudotumor cerebri, and sharply improve their crippling arthritis. There are a number of reasons for this failure to deliver the care to those who need it, but one is that the quality of bariatric surgery is uneven. To improve the delivery of bariatric surgery with efficacy, efficiency, and safety, the American Society for Bariatric Surgery founded the Surgical Review Corporation as an independent non-profit organization to recognize Centers of Excellence based on their outcomes. The results of this initiative have been impressive, with the delivery of bariatric surgery to 33,117 patients with a mortality rate of 0.3% and a readmission rate of 4.5%, significantly better than outcomes reported for other major surgical procedures.
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