Rural surgical and obstetric facility-level outcomes for index procedures: a retrospective cohort study (2016–2021)
Authors: Jude Kornelsen, Gal Av-Gay, Anshu Parajulee, Nancy Humber, Sean Ebert, Tom Skinner and Kathrin Stoll
Publication date: June 2025
Many rural communities have lost local access to procedural care, and although rural surgical services have endured in some regions, questions regarding quality and safety of care have persisted. Using retrospective observational data, this study sought to compare adverse outcomes of the most common surgical procedures performed at rural facilities in British Columbia and outcomes by provider specialty. The study included analysis of patients who had a colonoscopy, hernia repair, appendectomy, or cesarean delivery at 1 of 7 rural hospitals in BC that participated in the Rural Surgical and Obstetrics Networks (RSON) initiative and corresponding referral facilities between 2016 and 2021.
The findings of this study provide evidence in favour of the efficacy of rural procedural care at BC facilities, and although these results are not inherently generalizable to other populations, they illustrate the potential for high-quality rural care for low-acuity procedures in similar settings. This is an important step toward documenting rural-specific outcomes and creating attendant benchmarks for rural practice.
