Table 3.
Hospital and provider characteristics, primary analyses
| Powered staplers, n = 659 | Manual staplers, n = 3100 | Std. diff.a | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US geographic region, n (%) | |||
| South | 557 (84.5) | 1445 (46.6) | 0.870 |
| Midwest | 4 (0.6) | 174 (5.6) | 0.291 |
| Northeast | 16 (2.4) | 999 (32.2) | 0.856 |
| West | 82 (12.4) | 482 (15.5) | 0.090 |
| Rural, n (%) | 92 (14.0) | 172 (5.5) | 0.286 |
| Non-teaching, n (%) | 297 (45.1) | 1468 (47.4) | 0.046 |
| Cost type: cost-to-charge ratiob, n (%) | 58 (8.8) | 756 (24.4) | 0.428 |
| Bed Size | |||
| 0–299 | 108 (16.4) | 558 (18.0) | 0.043 |
| 300–399 | 87 (13.2) | 467 (15.1) | 0.053 |
| 400–499 | 124 (18.8) | 670 (21.6) | 0.070 |
| ≥ 500 | 340 (51.6) | 1405 (45.3) | 0.126 |
| Surgical specialty, n (%) | |||
| Thoracic | 542 (82.2) | 1869 (60.3) | 0.500 |
| Cardiovascular | 75 (11.4) | 791 (25.5) | 0.370 |
| General | 6 (0.9) | 246 (7.9) | 0.347 |
| Other | 36 (5.5) | 194 (6.3) | 0.034 |
| Monthly surgical volume ratioc, n (%) | |||
| ≤ 0.75 | 77 (11.7) | 765 (24.7) | 0.342 |
| ≥ 0.75 < 2 | 106 (16.1) | 955 (30.8) | 0.353 |
| ≥ 2 < 4 | 225 (34.1) | 1082 (34.9) | 0.016 |
| ≥ 4 | 251 (38.1) | 298 (9.6) | 0.708 |
SD standard deviation, Std. diff. standardized difference
aStandardized difference > 0.10 indicates imbalance across the cohorts
bProcedural costing is reference
cRatio of the number of VATS lobectomy procedures to the number of months the patient’s hospital was present in database during the study period