Incidence of unplanned return to the operating room following vitreoretinal surgery at a public teaching hospital

Abstract

Purpose: To determine the incidence of unplanned return to the operating room within 30 or 90 d following vitreoretinal surgery.

Methods: Hospital records of 431 patients undergoing vitreoretinal surgery at San Francisco General Hospital between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2009 were reviewed to determine the incidence of unplanned reoperations.

Results: Unplanned reoperation occurred within 30 d in 22 cases (3.77%) and within 90 d in 56 cases (9.61%).

Conclusions: This study establishes benchmarks for the rate of unplanned return to the operating room following vitreoretinal surgery at an urban teaching hospital. Measuring reoperation within 90 d may provide a useful quality improvement metric of short- and middle-term complications.