The number of surgeries a hospital performs is easily measured and has been used to show clinical expertise. Procedure volume (number of cases per year for a hospital) has therefore become a widely-used quality indicator for surgery.

The Leapfrog Group, a national organization devoted to improving patient safety, has suggested that a surgical program that performs at least 50 abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repairs per year has better outcomes than programs performing fewer procedures.