Why the study?
Does reducing preoperative wait time by 30 minutes affect postoperative pain, anxiolytic use, and recovery time in patients undergoing spinal surgery?
Does reducing preoperative wait time by 30 minutes affect postoperative pain, anxiolytic use, and recovery time in patients undergoing spinal surgery?
Reducing preoperative wait time by 30 minutes for spinal surgery does not compromise immediate clinical outcomes and improves patient convenience.
Shorter preoperative waits may be feasible without harming spinal surgery outcomes; leaves open need for randomized confirmation before practice change.
A process improvement initiative reduced the immediate preoperative wait time for patients undergoing spinal surgery by 30 minutes. Data from spinal surgeries occurring before and after the initiative were compared with patients arriving 2 hours vs 1.5 hours prior to surgery, respectively. In this study, we describe the association between reduced preoperative wait time and 3 clinical end points-postoperative pain, use of anxiolytics in the preoperative waiting period, and length of time in surgical recovery. The reduction in preoperative wait time did not compromise clinical outcomes and likely made a positive difference for patients in terms of convenience.
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Gray et al. (2010) studied this question.
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