The Chief of the Medical Staff requests a report on the number of coronary artery bypass grafts performed by a particular physician in April of the previous year. Where would the health information manager look for this information?

• A. Physician performance file
• B. Discharge summaries
• C. Operation index
• D. Clinical notes

Answer: (C)

To tally how many coronary artery bypass grafts a specific physician performed in a given month, you need a source that lists each surgical procedure with who performed it and when. The operation index provides exactly that kind of structured record, making it easy to filter by the physician and by the month to produce the count.

Discharge summaries are tied to individual admissions and may miss procedures if a patient’s care spans multiple stays, so they’re not efficient for a hospital-wide count. Clinical notes are narrative and not organized for quick aggregation, which makes searching for a total across many patients impractical. A physician performance file is useful for credentialing and general performance tracking, but it’s not the primary source for counting specific procedures across an entire period.