Why should patients and the public need to know about risk stratification?
The most important feature is that risk stratification helps guide the surgeon and the patient towards deciding whether or not to go ahead with surgery. Decisions about an operation can only be made if you know the likely risk and the benefit of the operation so that you can “weigh them up” against each other. For example, if you have angina, and you know that the benefit of an operation will be to get rid of the angina and help protect you against a heart attack, you might well wish to proceed with surgery if your risk of dying is 3%, but you may have second thoughts if your risk is, say, 30%. Understanding risk is also important in knowing which hospital or surgeon you choose. League tables may place hospitals (and, soon, surgeons) in the order of their outcome results (death after a procedure). To make sense of such tables, having an idea of risk is essential. Remember none of these are perfect and when applied to an individual patient can only allow an educated guesstimate of risk
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- Why should patients and the public need to know about risk stratification?
