Abstract
Purpose :
Surgery cancellations affect patient satisfaction and ocular health, and negatively impact the efficiency of healthcare systems. By understanding causes of ophthalmic surgery cancellations and related predictive factors, they can be minimized. This study is a retrospective, non-randomized study that aims to determine risk factors for ophthalmic surgery cancellations.
Methods :
The study included a consecutive sample of patients above the age of 18 who had an ophthalmic surgery scheduled at Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic, OH between January 2012 and December 2019. An automated search pull identified 75,908 scheduled surgeries (63,987 completed and 11,921 cancelled surgeries; Figure 1). Statistical analysis was performed using R (version 3.5.1) to examine factors that impact risk for surgery cancellation.
Results :
Analysis was performed on 69,963 scheduled surgeries (57.37% Female, 42.63% Male; Mean age of 62.72 years; 59,959 completed and 10,004 cancelled surgeries). Cataract surgery was the most common surgery scheduled, accounting for 56.32% of scheduled surgeries. Of the 2,384 cancelled surgeries with reasons provided, the most common causes of cancellation were patient refusal (38.42%), patient health condition (18.79%), and reschedule (15.27%). Female sex, black race, patient age less than 50 years, cataract surgeries, regional mean household income greater than $82,900, Medicare insurance, and geographical distance of less than 10 miles from home to the surgery site all significantly increased the risk of surgery cancellation (p<0.01; Table 1).
Conclusions :
This study successfully identified several factors predicting ophthalmic surgery cancellation. The clinical insights gained from these lines of inquiry may be used to construct models that not only identify patients at greater risk for cancellation but also highlight which interventions would have greatest efficacy in preventing ophthalmic surgery cancellations.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.