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Profile of orthopaedic day-case procedures at a district general hospital (retrospective study)
Mansour Mohammed Aldhilan1, Azeez Olalekan Tella2
1Alrass General Hospital, Ministry of Health, Alrass, Saudi Arabia.
Background:
The outcomes of orthopaedic day-case procedures have been reported widely, but there is a lack of reports from secondary health facilities such as district hospitals.
Aim:
We aimed to perform a retrospective analysis of patient records to capture the profile of day-case procedures performed.
Materials And Methods:
We conducted a retrospective analysis of day-case procedures at the dedicated Day Surgery Unit of a moderate-sized district hospital in Saudi Arabia between January 2021 and December 2022. The medical records of all the patients who had day-case procedures by the hospital's orthopaedic unit were analyzed.
Results:
Within the study period, 71 out of 914 elective orthopaedic procedures were carried out as day-cases, giving a day-case surgery rate of 7.8%. The mean age was 25.3 ± 12.2 (range, 4-55 years), and the male-to-female ratio was 6:1. The spectrum of the procedures was dominated by implant removal in 59 cases (83.1%). Whilst the anaesthetic technique varied, all the patients were ASA class I or II. There were minor complications in 10 patients (14.0%), with 7 of them (9.8%) needing inpatient admission. There was no cancellation of cases in our study.
Conclusion:
We found day-case procedures to be safe and effective but with low utilisation of the Day Surgery Unit, which can be improved through the development of a detailed protocol for day surgery in the hospital.
