Patient Survey of Referral From One Surgeon to Another to Reduce Maximum Waiting Time for Elective Surgery and Hours of Overutilized Operating Room Time.

BACKGROUND

Studies of shared (patient-provider) decision making for elective surgical care have examined both the decision whether to have surgery and patients' understanding of treatment options. We consider shared decision making applied to case scheduling, since implementation would reduce labor costs.

METHODS

Study questions were presented in sequence of waiting times, starting with 4 workdays. "Assume the consultant surgeon (ie, the surgeon in charge) you met in clinic did not have time available to do your surgery within the next 4 workdays, but his/her colleague would have had time to do your surgery within the next 4 workdays. Would you have wanted to discuss with a member of the surgical team (eg, the scheduler or the surgeon) the availability of surgery with a different, equally qualified surgeon at Mayo Clinic who had time available within the next 4 workdays, on a date of your choosing?" There were 980 invited patients who underwent lung resection or cholecystectomy between 2011 and 2016; 135 respondents completed the study and 6 respondents dropped out after the study questions were displayed.

RESULTS

The percentages of patients whose response to the study questions was "4 days" were 58.8% (40/68) among lung resection patients and 58.2% (39/67) among cholecystectomy patients. The 97.5% 2-sided confidence interval for the median maximum wait was 4 days to 4 days. Patients' choices for the waiting time sufficient to discuss having another surgeon perform the procedure did not differ between procedures (P = .91). Results were insensitive to patients' sex, age, travel time to hospital, or number of office visits before surgery (all P ≥ .20).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results indicate that bringing up the option with the patient of changing surgeons when a colleague is available and has the operating room time to perform the procedure sooner is being respectful of most patients' individual preferences (ie, patient-centered).