Causes for cancellation of elective surgical procedures in a Spanish general hospital.
Cancellation of scheduled surgery is undesirable for patients and an inefficient use of resources. We prospectively collected data for 52 consecutive months in a public general hospital to estimate the prevalence and causes. The overall cancellation rate was 6.5% (2559 of 39 115 scheduled operations). Cancellation by broad category was for 'medical reasons' in 50%, 'patient-related factors' in 23%, and due to 'administrative/logistic problems' in 25%. The commonest specific causes within these categories were respectively: infections/fever (18%), patient did not attend (20%) and lack of theatre time (23%). This data will help direct resources to target prevention of cancellations as a result of these main problems.
González-Arévalo
A
A
Department of Anaesthesia, Hospital Universitario Fundación Alcorcón, Madrid, Spain. agonzalez@ fhalcorcon.es
Gómez-Arnau
J I
JI
delaCruz
F J
FJ
Marzal
J M
JM
Ramírez
S
S
Corral
E M
EM
García-del-Valle
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D000075202:Contraindications; D017558:Elective Surgical Procedures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods; D006769:Hospitals, General / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009873:Operating Rooms / Q000458:organization & administration; D013030:Spain; D013503:Surgery Department, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D055815:Young Adult