Effects of the Multidisciplinary Preoperative Clinic on the Incidence of Elective Surgery Cancellation

Abstract

To evaluate effects of the multidisciplinary preoperative clinic (POC) consisting of anesthesiologists, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses on elective surgery cancellation, we retrospectively investigated patients who underwent elective non-cardiac, non-obstetric surgeries between October, 2018 and March, 2019 (before the POC establishment: Group 1) and between October, 2019 and March, 2020 (after the POC establishment: Group 2). Among reasons for surgery cancellation allocated into eight categories, three reasons for cancellation (related to consent authorization, medication, and significant comorbidities) were considered preventable. We compared incidences of overall and preventable cancellations of surgeries between 4,198 patients in Group 1 and 4,664 patients in Group 2, who had significantly different clinical backgrounds, including the ASA-PS class. There was no significant difference in the incidence of overall cancellation between Group 1 and Group 2 (4.1% vs. 4.1%, p = 0.96). However, the incidence of preventable cancellation was significantly lower in Group 2 than in Group 1 (0.4% vs. 0.7%, p = 0.045). In addition, the incidence of overall cancellation was significantly lower in 3,741 Group 2 patients visiting the POC than in 5,121 patients not visiting the POC in both Groups (3.2% vs. 4.7%, p < 0.001). Further, in 3,423 pairs of patients with comparable clinical backgrounds created from both Groups using propensity score matching, incidences of overall cancellation (2.2% vs. 3.1%) and preventable cancellation (0.1% vs. 0.6%) were significantly lower in Group 2 than in Group 1 (p = 0.036 and 0.008, respectively). In conclusion, the multidisciplinary POC was effective in reducing elective surgery cancellation.

Keywords: Cancellation of surgery; Multidisciplinary team; Operational efficiency; Preoperative clinic.