All active clinicians can check out SurgicalPerformance to test it and to determine if it is the right platform for you. All you need to do is to create a free account. Not even a credit card is required at this stage.
We are often asked (and rightly so), “What kind of information is captured from users and patients, and who will this information be shared with?”
As a matter of principle, we share no identifiable information of patients or clinicians with any third party, nor the public. We may share de-identified and aggregate data for research, which is impossible to track to any individual surgeon.
Your name: Most users register with their real name; but you don’t have to. The main thing is that you have a valid login and email address. However, all certificates for attendance and pertaining to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) require a name. Our confidentiality rules are so strict that not even the fact that someone created an account or entered cases into SurgicalPerformance will be shared with anyone.
Your hospital(s)/locations: When you register you will need to nominate at least one hospital or location. However, you can select and nominate as many hospitals that you work in as you prefer. The reason we capture the hospital site is because clinical results that we present to you, will be broken down by hospital (as well as other categories), so that users (e.g., you) can more insightfully compare yourself against others across multiple benchmarks. Again, only you can see your own data, and the comparison data you or anyone else can see is de-identified and aggregated. Clinical and comparison information will be computed live so that we can deliver this information live and in real-time onto your screen, without any hospital knowing that you created a SurgicalPerformance account. We also provide a TEST_LOCATION that you can use for any cases which should not be included in data analysis.
Clinical data: When you enter your first case, you enter the patients name, the date of birth and other information about them. No patient will know that you entered this data. You can obtain generic consent for performing quality assurance activities (which includes entering your data into SurgicalPerformance) if you wish, but you don’t have to. In Australia, NHMRC states that any clinician capturing data for self-reflection will be exempted from obtaining patients informed consent. All SurgicalPerformance data are stored securely at our servers in the cloud and none of that will be shared with any third party.
Patients mobile number for PROMS: If you have indicated you want Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROMS) for a particular patient the system will attempt to contact the patient with an SMS to the provided number. We recommend you ask your patient if they have a smart phone and if they are happy to be contacted about their recovery from time to time. Most patients very happily agree and consent. Patients find it easier to answer a brief survey than answering the phone (while they are somewhere in a public space). However, if you do not wish the patient to receive a text message from your office, you simply turn PROMS off in the data entry section. Surveys only get sent if you turn PROMS “ON”, and you submit a mobile phone number, and you complete the name field.
Once PROMS surveys are sent, the mobile phone number will disappear from the data entry screen for security reasons.
Is it problematic to enter false dummy data into SurgicalPerformance when trying it out for the free first 10 cases?
Not at all – if you are entering dummy data, we suggest you use the generic “Test_Location” when entering the case. This will ensure the data is not associated with any institution and not included in any aggregated data. Even if you have a few records with inaccurate data associated with a valid location, you are not going to harm the large group of SurgicalPerformance users because your 10 cases will only in miniscule ways influence our total of more than 200,000 cases that are stored in our system for comparison purposes.
If you are still uncertain about our privacy policy, please read our Terms and conditions that specify use of SurgicalPerformance and our Privacy policy.
Let us know if you have any concerns.