Meauring the Quality of Spine Care at the Cedars-Sinai Spine Center

Cedars-Sinai is committed to the latest spine expertise, treatment and research. As a result, the Cedars-Sinai Spine Center has developed into a comprehensive and advanced spine center dedicated to the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of all neck, back pain and spinal conditions.

The Cedars-Sinai Spine Center has a multidisciplinary team of surgeons, surgical fellows, specialized spine nurses, and conservative care and diagnostic specialists.

Research and teaching are emphasized by the Center that help us to provide the most state-of-the-art clinical care available. Numerous clinical trials are being conducted and developed to pursue the latest techniques available to create the most effective treatments to alleviate back and neck pain. The Center is currently conducting clinical trials in artificial disc replacement to treat pain and disability caused by cervical and lumbar disc disease. Other current studies include non-fusion devices for spinal stabilization, bone morphogenetic protein applications for enhancing the success of spinal fusion, Facet joint replacement  and laboratory research involving biomechanics and biotechnology for spinal regeneration.

Our goal is to ensure that all patients are cared for with respect and efficiency through their course of treatment for their spinal disorders.

Quality of Spinal Fusion Care

The table below shows the volume of spinal fusion procedures done by year at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Cervical procedures are ones done on the bones of the neck. Lumbar procedures are ones done on the lower back.

At the Cedars-Sinai Spine Center, a number of aspects of patient care are monitored for patients undergoing spinal fusion procedures.  These include:

• The number of days the patient must remain in the hospital (length of stay)
• The percentage of patients who spent days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
• The percentage of patients who experienced one or more complications

The data for patients who underwent cervical fusion procedures is shown in the table below along with data for a comparison group.*

The table below reflects data for patients who underwent lumbar fusion procedures at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and in comparison group hospitals.

Source: UHC Clinical DataBase/Resource Manager^TM, patients discharged between January 2010 and December 2010. 

UHC is an alliance of 113 academic medical centers and 253 of their affiliated hospitals representing approximately 90% of the nation's non-profit academic medical centers. The majority of these facilities participate in the Clinical DataBase/Resource Manager.

* The comparison group is all available, full-member hospitals in the UHC Clinical DataBase/Resource Manager^TM.