Organizational setups and non-elective surgical delays - a single-center cohort study: institutional setups and surgical delays

Extended delays in non-elective surgeries have been associated with suboptimal outcomes. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic forced healthcare systems to adapt their setups for unscheduled procedures, leading, in our institution, to a reorganization from a setup with two dedicated operating rooms (ORs) at a central facility without dedicated teams to a temporary one with both dedicated teams and ORs during lockdown phase. This study evaluates the impact of this transitions on the time to surgery considering unscheduled procedures. We considered three periods: a historical cohort from the year preceding the first French lockdown, the lockdown period, and a post-lockdown era covering the four weeks immediately afterward. The ideal time to surgery (iTTS) was retrospectively determined using the non-elective surgery triage classification. The primary outcome focused on the proportion of patients operated after their iTTS. Over study periods, 435 patients underwent non-scheduled surgery: 137,198 and 100 in the historical cohort, the lockdown, and post-lockdown period respectively. The proportion of out-timed patients was significantly lower during lockdown period than in the historical cohort (36.5% vs. 55.3%, P<0.001), driven by the less urgent patients (i.e., NEST 5-6 patients, 25.6% during lockdown vs. 58.2% in historical cohort). There was no significant difference between the lockdown era and the post-lockdown phase. Our findings suggest that dedicated teams and surgical suite may reduce time to surgery for non-scheduled procedures, particularly for less urgent cases. However, the retrospective monocentric design and our limited statistical power limit the extend of our conclusions.