Patient Survival: As Expected?

September 20, 2009 by admin

"As Expected" means that the facility's actual patient survival (for 2004 to 2007) is not statistically better or worse than what is expected for the facility. The expected patient survival is the average length of life of patients on dialysis given the patients' age, size, race, sex, ethnicity, whether or not they have diabetes, how long they have had kidney failure, and whether they had other health problems when they started dialysis. An exception to this rule is very small facilities, which are usually listed as "as expected". Because of their small size it is difficult to define "as expected", since even one death in a small facility would equal a large percent of loss. If there is enough information to prove it, a small facility would be listed as Better or Worse than Expected.