Value propositions in healthcare remain at the forefront of both patient and provider interests. To that end, government agencies, private insurers, and patient advocacy groups have all spent considerable time and effort in attempting to define reliable metrics that are reflective of optimal value in care. Perhaps the most simplified measure of value for all involved in delivering and receiving healthcare service is time. Although lacking in specific information regarding outcome and/or satisfaction, hospital length of stay has been the predominant measure in outcomes research, largely based on the universal understanding that the reduction in hospitalization time is a positive attribute.
The impact of elective surgical procedures on overall operating costs for US hospitals was highlighted by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project published through the AHRQ where only 29% of hospitalizations involved a surgical procedure, but these hospitalizations accounted for 48% of the $387 billion in hospital costs in 2011 [6]. Of interest, this study also concluded that hospital admissions involving OR procedures were associated with a longer mean length of stay (5.0 vs 4.4 days) compared to admissions without surgery and the percent of elective surgical admissions was more than 3-fold higher than non-surgical admissions (48% vs 13% of total N). Overall, this work demonstrated the significant proportion of expenditure and resource utilization accompanying surgical admissions in the US, while alluding to the need to identify areas for cost reduction.
Elective surgical procedures present a number of opportunities for augmentation in the need for inpatient hospitalizations. Compared to urgent or emergent procedures, the elective surgeries allow for a controlled approach to post-surgical disposition planning and a reduction in patient/family anxiety. From a system occupancy perspective, the transition away from universal overnight hospitalization for short procedures to same day surgery has been seen in a multitude of areas [7–9]. Yet, the ability to transition an overnight observation case to a same day surgery case is not universal, regardless of the case complexity. In the setting of anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, a common spine procedure that has seen a trend toward same day discharge, Mayo et al [10] found that the time of day of the procedure was predictive of the ability to discharge same day. In that study, a “late” mean surgical start time of 12:19 (range: 9:10–17:51) resulted in a higher likelihood of requiring overnight hospitalization (HR 1.6 ± 0.30; P = 0.010) [10]. Of course, the limitations of same day discharge in this situation is affected by mandatory minimum post-anesthetic observation time, unlike the cases in which overnight admission is guaranteed post-operatively.
In the current study, we identify a significant LOS effect among elective cases with planned hospital admissions in which surgical start time is documented after 3PM, which accounts for 8.4% of all 9258 cases analyzed. Based on service line demarcation, only Orthopedic and Neurological surgery appeared to be effected, with these cases representing 65% of the total cases analyzed. Unfortunately, a more detailed analysis of these cases based on surgical site, failed to demonstrate a significant predominance of a particular procedure that could account for the time of day effect. In fact, the distribution in Neurosurgical cases between cranial and spine was precisely even at 48% of all after 3PM cases within that service line, providing an argument against the impact of bias in case scheduling. While the multivariate analysis of age, ASA classification, and diabetes status all found significant predictors of shorter LOS in the non-diabetic, ASA Class I patient under the age of 65, the start time before 3PM was the most powerful indicator (HR 1.214; p < 0.001).
As with most modern value assessments in healthcare, total hospital charges accrued during an episode of care remain an important metric. Continued evolution of the reimbursement process will likely increase the importance of total charges for all hospital systems, with potential likelihood that fixed payment schedules may eventually become universal based on diagnostic code [11]. Experiences with bundled payments in orthopedic and spinal procedures has resulted in mixed response with respect to total episode costs, without differences in length of stay [12]. Our analysis failed to demonstrate a significant difference in case-matched charges for procedures performed in the before or after 3PM cohorts, although the trend toward higher charge accumulation followed with the increased LOS in the after 3PM for four out of the six procedures analyzed.
The demarcation of the 3PM start time was not arbitrary, but based on the inherent shift changes that impact operating room staff, including nursing, surgical technologists, and anesthetists. Given the mixture of room personnel, there was the highest likelihood that at least one team member transitions off shift and is replaced by another that was not present for the start of the case. In addition, previous literature has supported the concept that adverse anesthetic effects are more likely to occur in patients with surgical start time after 3PM [13]. Similarly, anesthetic handoffs are more likely during evening or weekend cases in a large series analysis of the ACS NSQIP, where documented post-operative complications are more likely, although no causal relationship has been established, nor is the presence of a handoff predictive of a post-surgical morbidity after correcting for the co-variate of time of day [14].
Our data is contrasted to that of many other studies that examine the time of day effect on procedural safety, namely in the overall survival or development of co-morbidities, such as infection, cardiac event, or stroke [15–18]. With respect to morbidities, the literature is dichotomous with some studies dismissing impact of surgical start time, while others underscoring the importance of such. Of interest, a clear time of day effect has been described in serval cardiac surgery studies, noting higher blood transfusion rates and even increased mortality [19, 20]. With this in mind, our institution’s avoidance of late starts in the Cardiac service line (5% of total cases) in understandable.
The limitations of this work include its single institutional, retrospective nature and the lack of outcome data with regard to readmission, and surgeon specific post-operative management guidelines. While adoption of universal parameters for urinary catheter removal and post-operative mobilization have likely served to mitigate some of these issues, their impact remains uncertain in the current data set. In addition, the surgical scheduling of elective cases is a department specific process rather than centralized with preservation of service line block time. Hence, the possibility of service line specific bias in case mix scheduling could be present within these data.
Overall, these data support the concept that late start (after 3PM) elective surgical cases result in an increase median LOS for patients, specifically those undergoing Orthopedic and Neurosurgical cases. From a cost perspective, this increase LOS by one day represents a total of 487 inpatient hospitalization days for which there is no increased revenue generation, and a decrease in occupancy capacity. In an era of emphasizing increased value and expenditure capitation, additional attention spent on optimizing the scheduling of elective surgical cases has the potential for improvement for both patients and healthcare delivery systems. To that end, a centralized approach to the scheduling of elective surgical cases and recognition of the need for cases to be started in a timely manner during daytime business hours may offer an improved method for decreasing unnecessary LOS increases over time.