The Hidden Operational Costs of Delayed Surgery

Imagine a patient in the emergency department. They need surgery – and soon. However, the operating room has a full schedule of cases planned for today. It would be easy to let the ED patient wait until the end of the day, or even to admit them to an inpatient bed and wait until a spot opens on the OR schedule. But there are more costs to this practice than you may realize.

It’s easy to see that if this patient waits for surgery, they will be using valuable hospital resources – an inpatient or ED bed that could be used for another patient, nursing and other staff to care for the patient.

What we don’t always think about, however, is the delay on the back end. If the patient waits longer than clinically appropriate, the patient may take longer to recover and have an extended length of stay even after surgery. One published article reporting on findings from The Ottawa Hospital, found that a“Delay of operating room access for emergency surgery was independently associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality, longer length of stay and higher total hospital costs.”

That’s only one reason it’s important to ensure you have the right capacity and processes in place to ensure that patients who need emergency surgery have access when they need it most.

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