Inpatients account for at least half of operating room time cancelled within one day before surgery, which is time that can usually not be rescheduled, according to a study published in the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia.
The study analyzed OR schedules from 21 nonacademic hospitals in large health systems as well as from a single academic medical center.
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At the nonacademic hospitals, while only 16 percent of scheduled OR minutes were for inpatients, inpatients accounted for 49 percent of all cancelled minutes, according to the report. At the academic hospital, inpatients accounted for 22 percent of cancelled minutes and 70 percent of cancelled OR time, with over half of the cancelled time occurring one day or less before surgery.
For outpatients, physician visits had no impact on whether OR time was cancelled, while preoperative telephone calls did reduce OR cancellations, but only by about 2 percent.
Researchers suggest that while outpatient cancellations may be difficult to improve, there is plenty of latitude for improving inpatient surgical cancellations to improve OR productivity, with efforts focused on understanding why late-stage cancellations happen so often for inpatients.
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