Video-based Collaborative Learning to Improve Ventral Hernia Repair

Recent studies demonstrate the critical role of individual surgeon performance, including both the approach they take to an operation as well as their technical skill, in determining patient outcomes. Utilizing the rich data collected by the Abdominal Core Health Quality Collaborative (ACHQC), formerly Americas Hernia Society Quality Collaborative (AHSQC), for its 200 members performing ventral hernia repair in the United States, the investigators will examine the effectiveness of video-based collaborative learning to provide feedback and improve surgical performance and patient outcomes. A prospective randomized trial comparing two interventions is proposed, comparing live video-based surgical coaching and video-based feedback using time-stamped annotations that can be reviewed at a later time to a wait-list control group drawn from the same cohort of surgeons. The results have the immediate potential to improve the quality of care for the 350,000 patients requiring ventral hernia repair each year, while also providing critical evidence to support a novel approach to surgical performance improvement more broadly.