Impact of hospital safety-net status on failure to rescue after major cardiac surgery

Hospitals with safety-net status have been associated with inferior surgical outcomes and higher costs. The mechanism of this discrepancy, however, is not well understood. We hypothesized that discrepant rates of failure to rescue after complications of routine cardiac surgery would explain the observed inferior outcomes at safety-net hospitals.The National Inpatient Sample was used to identify adult patients who underwent elective coronary...