title: Causes of cancellations on the day of surgery at two major university hospitals.
abstract: Cancellations of elective cases on the day of surgery waste valuable operating-room time. The authors studied cancellations at an American hospital and a Norwegian university hospital to test (a) whether the quality of hospital administrative data on cancellations is sufficient for meaningful comparative analysis and (b) whether causes of cancellations at these 2 major academic hospitals are comparable. Large retrospective cause-of-cancellation data sets were obtained from each hospital. The authors then prospectively established root causes of cancellations by on-site investigation and interviews of the hospital personnel involved. The surgical department at the Norwegian hospital cancelled 14.58% of cases in 2003 and 16.07% in 2004. The American hospital cancelled 16.52% of all cases between May 1, 2003, and April 30, 2004. Administrative data may give a rough picture of causes of cancellations. However, most findings at either of the hospitals do not translate easily to the other.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. andreas.seim@sintef.no
authors.forename: Andreas R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Seim
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fagerhaug
authors.forename: Sveinung M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Ryen
authors.forename: Paige
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Curran
authors.forename: Ola D
authors.initials: OD
authors.lastname: Saether
authors.forename: Hans O
authors.initials: HO
authors.lastname: Myhre
authors.forename: Warren S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Sandberg
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D017558:Elective Surgical Procedures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006742:Hospital Bed Capacity; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D009664:Norway; D010559:Personnel Management; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D013503:Surgery Department, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States