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Can Increased Patient Involvement Reduce the Number of Surgery Cancellations? Lessons Learned from a Research and Development Project in Norway

Authors:
Kari Dyb
Conceicao Granja

Keywords: e-health; elective surgery cancellations; increased patient involvement, planning

Abstract:
Increased patient involvement is the new mantra in modern healthcare, indicating that patients can play an important role in improving the quality of their health and care services. In this paper, we study the reality of increased patient involvement within the current organizational structure of hospitals by revisiting the findings from a recent research and development project at a university hospital in Norway. Through the development and implementation of a tool for electronic two-way communication between patients and hospitals, the overarching goal of the eTeam-Surgery project (2013–2019) was to better prepare the hospital and the patient for surgical procedures and thereby reduce the number of surgery cancellations. To approach this goal, researchers from the field of health informatics, medicine and sociology explored a quality improvement initiative at the hospital, made field observations and interviewed patients and health professionals. eTeam-Surgery demonstrated that establishing a tool for active involvement of patients in the pre-operative planning process was not an easy task. The research revealed (1) diverse reasons for surgery cancellations, (2) a lack of uniformity in the pre-operative workflow and (3) a hospital practice of marking a surgery as cancelled when patients tried to rebook for a different date. Focusing on increased patient involvement, this paper demonstrates how the main reasons for cancellation at the hospital and the lack of uniformity of the pre-operative workflow both originate from hospital organizational issues and, consequently, will not be solved with increased patient involvement. On the other hand, increased patient involvement can improve the current hospital practice of marking surgeries as cancellations when patients are actually trying to rebook. It is our conclusion that hospitals have a long way to go before the new mantra of active patient involvement can be a reality. However, we still believe that active patient involvement can positively contribute to the problem of elective surgery cancellation. The first step would be for hospitals to offer patients the option of choosing their own date of surgery, similar to booking an airline ticket online.

Pages: 68 to 73

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2020

Publication date: March 22, 2020

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4359

ISBN: 978-1-61208-763-4

Location: Valencia, Spain

Dates: from November 21, 2020 to November 25, 2020