Objective To analyze the causes of day surgery patients missing appointments, and discuss the countermeasures. Methods We selected the patients who had missed appointments for day surgery in the Second Affiliated Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine between January 2017 and June 2022. According to the implementation time of the measures, we divided the patients into two groups: pre-intervention (between January 2017 and June 2020) and post-intervention (between July 2020 and June 2022), to analyze the causes of patients’ cancellation, compare the change of patients’ cancellation rate before and after the implementation of measures, and explore the effectiveness of implementation measures. Results A total of 17 392 patients were included, and the total number of day surgery patients was 148 720 during the same period. The total cancellation rate was 11.69% (17 392/148 720). The cancellation rate in the post-intervention was lower than that in the pre-intervention [9.70% (7 935/81 775) vs. 14.13% (9 457/66 945), odds ratio was 0.695, 95% confidence interval (0.674, 0.717), P<0.001]. There were 13 common reasons for cancellation, of which “outpatient treatment, not hospitalization” was the most common reason. Conclusion Through the coordination of various departments, actively optimizing the preoperative evaluation of patients, updating the appointment process, strengthening effective communication and implementing the implementation of efficient medical treatment, the cancellation rate of day surgery can be reduced, which has certain reference significance to improving the management level of the hospital and the ability to serve patients.
Objective To understand the current situation of ambulatory surgery cancellation rates and the reasons for cancellation. Methods China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang data, VIP database, Embase, Web of Science, PubMed and Cochrane Library were systematically searched for literature reporting cancellation of ambulatory surgery and published between January 1st, 2000 and September 1st, 2023. Data extraction and meta-analysis were conducted after literature screening, and subgroup analyses were conducted based on the type of the ward, reasons for cancellation, and study sites. Results A total of 19 studies were included, with a total of 270528 cases of ambulatory surgeries, among which 12250 cases were cancelled. The ambulatory surgery cancellation rate was 5.8% [95% confidence interval (CI) (4.5%, 7.1%)]. Subgroup analyses showed that the cancellation rates of general wards, pediatric wards, and ophthalmic wards were 4.0% [95%CI (2.9%, 5.1%)], 9.9% [95%CI (5.2%, 14.5%)], and 8.1% [95%CI (2.7%, 13.4%)], respectively, and the difference in the cancellation rate among different types of wards was statistically significant (P=0.02); there was a significant difference in the surgery cancellation rate among different reasons for cancellation (P<0.01), the highest cancellation rate of surgery was due to disease factors, which was 2.5% [95%CI (1.2%, 3.9%)]; there was no statistically significant difference in the cancellation rate among different study sites (P=0.43). Conclusions The issue of cancellation of ambulatory surgery is prominent in clinical practice. Optimized management is therefore suggested in urgent.