Analysis of 24‐hour surgical cancellations in an academic rhinology and skull base surgery practice

Abstract

Background: Late cancellations within 24 hours of surgery lead to decreased utilization of operating room time with loss of productivity, decreased access to care, and inconvenience to patients and staff. To date, no studies have analyzed 24-hour cancellations in a tertiary rhinology practice. Methods:All procedures performed at a tertiary rhinology/skull base practice from January 2016 to December 2017 were reviewed. Twenty-four-hour cancellations were analyzed by procedure type and reason for cancellation. Avoidable cancellations were late cancellations that could have been prevented by review of medical records or communication by hospital staff with the patient before surgery. Univariate analysis was performed to determine predictive factors for cancellations. Results:A total of 39 of 640 surgical cases were cancelled (6.1%) within 24 hours of surgery. Of these, 69.2% were inflammatory and 30.8% were skull base cases. The mean number of operating room minutes lost was 151 (60 of 210) for inflammatory and 263 (102 of 480) for skull base cases. Avoidable cancellations were seen in 25 of 35 (71.4%) cases. Patients undergoing inpatient or skull base surgery were more likely to have medical cancellations than patients undergoing outpatient or inflammatory surgery (91.7% vs 43.5%, p = 0.01; 83.3% vs 47.8%, p = 0.07).Conclusion: This is the first study to analyze 24-hour cancellations in tertiary rhinology/skull base surgery. The results suggest that a majority of late cancellations are avoidable and that skull base and inpatient surgeries are more likely to be canceled for medical reasons. Further studies are required to be er characterize surgical cancellations in rhinology and identify strategies to try to prevent them. C 2018 ARS-AAOA, LLC. How to Cite this Article: Roxbury CR, Shah J, Tang D, et al. Analysis of 24-hour surgical cancellations in an academic rhinology and skull base surgery practice. Int Forum Allergy Rhinol. 2019;9:298-304.L ate or same-day surgical cancellations, defined as cancellations occurring within 24 hours of scheduled

Prior Telephone Confirmation to Reduce Absenteeism in Oncological Surgeries: A Phone Call That Saves Lives

“…As an intervention measure to reduce late cancellation rates, preoperative telephone contact is useful. Avila et al, through preoperative telephone calls, reduced the cancellation rate from 18% to 5.4% [11] while Kaye et al reported a reduction from 26% to 10.8% in surgical suspension due to patient absenteeism [23] . In this study, after the previous telephone call, there was a significant reduction in cancellations due to non-attendance from 16% in 2018 to 8% after telephone contact / 2019.…”

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“…[9][10][11][12][13] Encountering an unexpected active infection may also result in the need for same day cancellation of an ESBS, which can be very disruptive for the patient, the surgeon, and the health care system. 14 Thus, sinus findings on preoperative imaging in this patient population need to be critically evaluated and can represent a serious threat to successful ESBS.…”

Introducing a reserve waiting list initiative for elective general surgery at a District General Hospital

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