Time-sensitive surgery: the devil’s in the details

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

In Data-driven Identification of Urgent Surgical Procedures for Use in Trauma Outcomes Measurement, Miller et al describe a classification system in which administrative case posting data are used to generate a list of urgent surgical procedures. They posit that their methodology can be used to create likely-to-be urgent case lists across trauma networks, allowing for more optimal resource utilization.1 We commend their creativity and systematic approach to the organization of time-sensitive procedures. Through this work, they highlight crucial challenges in the optimization of perioperative care for patients with time-sensitive conditions.

The editorial commends a new classification system using administrative data to identify urgent surgical procedures for optimizing perioperative care in trauma networks.