Critical Analysis of Cancellation of Operative Procedure in Operation Theatre of a Tertiary Care Hospital

Volume : VII, Issue : V, May - 2018

Dr Madhav Madhusudan Singh, Dr Amita Jain

Introduction: Unanticipated cancellation of scheduled elective operations decreases theatre efficiency and is inconvenient to the

patients, their families and the medical teams.

Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study. Scheduled elective general surgical procedures were reviewed from

theatre records from Jan 2015 to Dec 2017.

Results: Out of 6211 scheduled surgeries, 509 ( 8.2 %) were cancelled. The most common category for cancellations was

surgeon related 234 (46 %), followed by administrative 101 (20 %), Anaesthetic workup related 71 (14%), patient related 62

(12 %) and medical causes 41 ( 8.05 %). Case cancellations can be reduced by improving preoperative assessment, proper

scheduling of cases and better interdepartmental coordination. The study revealed hospital is oversubscribed and utilized. Most

operations were cancelled at 24–h notice. The patients and the relatives feel angry, disappointed, frustrated, and anxious. In our

study, 8.2% operations were cancelled. Shortage of operating time (46 %) was the most important factor of cancellation of

elective operation in this study. A lot of OT time were wasted due to late starts, time between cases, preparation and cleaning OTs,

and delayed transportation of patients to OT.

Conclusions: Similar reasons for cancellations have been reported in studies from around the world. By knowing the reasons,

appropriate steps can be implemented to reduce the rate of cancellations to a minimum.