Assessing the Delays in Patients Undergoing Orthopedic Surgery and the Associated Factors at Taleghani Hospital

Transferring the patient to the operating room (OR) and back to the ward should be performed in the shortest time possible.

We aimed to identify and classify different delays at our center and the possible factors associated with them.

We investigated 46 patients scheduled for elective orthopedic surgery at Taleghani Hospital, Tehran, from July 2017 to March 2018.

Studying the time points showed that the main gap times included: T1 (when the surgical team informed OR staff until the orthopedic ward staff was informed (median of 5 minutes), T2 (when the orthopedic ward staff was informed until the patient was transferred to OR), T3 (when the patient reached OR until the patient was laid on OR bed), T6 (when the patient was prepared until the surgery started), T8 (from the end of the procedure until the patient exited the OR and entered the recovery room), T9 (duration spent in the recovery room), each with a median of 10 minutes. Although T5 and T6 were shorter in women (P = 0.005 and 0.020, respectively), the type of surgery or anesthesia did not affect the gaps.

This study showed a total of 75 minutes gap (delays in informing the ward and the time to transfer the patient to the ward), regardless of the duration of anesthesia, surgery, and preparations, which calls for the attention of the hospital’s policymakers to design strategies for reducing these gaps.