Predictors for Surgery-Related Emergency Department Visits within 30 Days of Foot and Ankle Surgeries

Presentation to an emergency department (ED) after foot and ankle surgeries not only causes inconvenience to patients but also increases healthcare costs. To minimize this, many major institutions have tracked these data as a part of quality improvement measures. Our previous study showed that factors associated with any (surgery-related and unrelated) postoperative ED visits were not easily modifiable by surgeons. Therefore, in the current study, we focused on factors associated specifically with surgery-related postoperative ED visits, because this may provide some insights for surgeons rather than just administrators. We examined 513 foot and ankle surgeries, of which 114 resulted in 30-day postoperative ED visits for surgery-related reasons. Demographic, medical, and surgical factors were evaluated, and risk factors were identified after adjusting for potential clinically relevant covariates. Both inpatient and outpatient surgical settings and outpatient surgical settings alone were analyzed separately. Regardless of the setting, we found that shorter surgery was protective against postoperative ED visits, as was having a previous ED visit within 6 months before surgery. In the outpatient setting, younger age and having no insurance were also proxies for a postoperative ED visit, in addition to the above factors.