A survey on the effect of recording rates and causes of surgery cancellation on the incidence of rates in candidates for surgery:a brief report

Preventing the cancellation of surgeries is an important and devastating challenge in operating room management. Cancellation of pre-scheduled surgeries at the last moment in the operation room leads to increased length of stay, patient dissatisfaction, human resource consumption and financial burden for patients and the health care system. In this study, we have investigated the effect of recording the causes of surgery cancellations in the operation room on the incidence of surgery cancellations in patients who have been candidates for non-emergent surgeries.

A total of 545 surgeries which had been canceled in different types of surgery between March 2014 and March 2015 were recorded according to the reasons for cancellation in predetermined forms and the information was analyzed. The most common reasons for cancellation included changing the plan of treatment from surgery, a high-risk comorbidity with a high probability of mortality, patient’s refusal from surgery, an unanticipated duration of previous surgery longer than anticipated, the unavailability of an ICU bed in the hospital, requested laboratory data not being ready, failing to prepare requested packed RBCs and other hospital or patient-related problems.

The percentage of surgery cancellations in most groups including orthopedics, urology, cardiac surgery, general surgery, gynecology and maxillofacial surgery, decreased during the course of this study. According to our findings the most relevant cause of non-emergent surgery cancellation was the unpredictable increased duration of previous surgery. The maxillofacial surgery group reached the highest surgery cancellation reduction rate and the cardiovascular surgery group experienced the lowest cancellation reduction rate. Also, the percentage of surgery cancellations in the field of neurosurgery increased during the study period.

Recording the reasons mentioned by the surgical team as the reason for canceling surgeries and reducing the rate of their occurrence during the study and providing appropriate feedback and dialogue in this case had a positive effect on reducing the rate of cancellation of the surgeries and reducing the mentioned reasons.