Researchers found a patient's physical status, the duration of surgery and the surgical specialty may impact the patient's likelihood of unplanned hospital admission after ambulatory surgery, according to Anesthesiology News.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers extracted data from Epic electronic medical records systems to analyze more than 4,400 procedures to see if they could predict clinical outcomes. Of these cases, 54 percent were ambulatory procedures including, but not limited to, pain, cardiothoracic, dermatology, otolaryngology, family planning, gastroenterology, gynecology, neurology, ophthalmology, oral maxillofacial, orthopedics and vascular surgery.
For American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status scores, 10 percent of patients were class I; 45 percent were class II; 40 percent were class III; and 4 percent were class IV.
Here are four key notes:
1. The study found unplanned hospital admissions were linked with higher ASA, duration of surgery and certain surgical services.
2. Researcher noted they did not focus on the 'why' but the 'who,' regarding hospital readmissions. Caryn Hertz, MD, associate anesthesiology professor at UNCCH School of Medicine, said, "For example, a patient with a high ASA score who undergoes a two-hour procedure in urology has a pretty significant chance of being admitted."
3. UNCCH researchers plan on conducting more studies that better define the population of ambulatory surgery patients at risk for unplanned admissions.
4. Dr. Hertz also aims to create an algorithm to use preoperative data to predict the likelihood of postoperative admission.
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