A new study published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery examined overlapping surgery in the ambulatory orthopedic setting.
The study authors examined an institutional clinical database to retrospectively review cases from 2012 to 2015. The cases included sports medicine, hand and foot surgery performed in an ambulatory orthopedic surgery center. There were 3,640 cases performed with 68 percent of them overlapping procedures and 32 percent non-overlapping procedures.
Here are five things to know:
1. There was no difference in procedure time or total operating room time; the average procedure time was 70.7 minutes for overlapping surgeries and 72.8 minutes for non-overlapping surgeries. The total operating room time was 105.4 minutes for overlapping procedures and 105.5 minutes for non-overlapping procedures.
2. The complication rate for overlapping procedures was 1.1 percent; the complication rate for non-overlapping procedures was 1.3 percent.
3. The researchers reported no difference in complications when stratifying based on subspecialty surgery.
4. Half of the overlapping procedures overlapped by less than one hour of OR time; however, 7 percent overlapped by more than two hours.
5. The complication rate wasn't associated with the amount of overlap between cases.