Surgery cancelation on the day of surgery in same-day admission in a Finnish hospital

Abstract

Background and aims: Surgery cancelations cause inappropriate use of hospital resources and additional financial and psychological stress to patients. Cancelation rates have been described to be even more than 10% of scheduled cases. Preoperative anesthesia evaluation clinics have been initialized to decrease cancelation rates. At Hyvinkää hospital, 95% of elective surgical patients are admitted on the morning of operation, and only 25% of these patients visit preoperative anesthesia evaluation clinic prior to surgery. Cancelation rate in Finnish hospitals has not been described.

Material and methods: We studied retrospectively 12,205 scheduled elective same-day admission surgical cases at Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District, Hyvinkää hospital for a period of 2 years. Obstetric cases, emergency cases, and a few inpatient cases were excluded. A case was considered as canceled if surgery was canceled after the finalization of operation room schedule for the next day. Cancelation rates among different specialties and reasons for cancelation were analyzed.

Results: A total of 12,205 surgeries were scheduled during the study period, and 551 (4.5%) of these were canceled. The highest cancelation rate was in hand surgery, with 8.2% of scheduled cases, followed by orthopedic surgery with 5.4%, and pediatric surgery with 5.1% cancelation rate. Endocrinology had no cancelations, and breast, urology, and vein surgery also had less than 2% of canceled cases. Patient-related issues caused 72.4% of cancelations, and operation no longer being necessary caused 26% of all cancelations.

Conclusions: Day of surgery cancelation rate was low in same-day admission, although it varied between specialties. Specialties having explicit surgery indications had fewer cancelations than specialties having surgery indications based on more subjective diagnostic. Process improvements need to be considered continuously to further decrease cancelation rate.

Keywords: From Home to Operation; Surgery cancelation; anesthesia evaluation; anesthesia preoperative evaluation clinic; reason for surgery cancelation; same-day admission.