Delayed discharges and unplanned admissionsfrom the Day Care Unit at Mater Dei Hospital, Malta

Malta medical journal

Daniel Farrugia¹  Glenn Paul Abela¹  Jessica Sant¹ 

关键词: delayed discharges;    unplanned admissions;    day case surgery;    day case anaesthesia.;   

DOI  :  

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: University of Malta * Medical School

【 摘 要 】

Introduction: Day care units are playing an increasingly important role in healthcare provision, however they require the development of specialised resources to fulfil their role. The rate of unplanned admissions following day-case procedures is considered as one of several indicators of the quality of day-case services available.1 The aim of this study is to identify how often there are delayed discharged or unplanned admissions following day-cases at the Day Care Unit at Mater Dei Hospital (MDH), Malta.Method: A list of patients whose discharge did not go as planned was forwarded daily to the authors by the Bed Management Unit at MDH. The medical files of these patients were then reviewed and data collected. This included demographics, type of procedure carried out and reasons for delayed discharge or unplanned admission. The study was carried out over 45 days.Results: 3599 patients were admitted to the Day Care Unit over the study period: 1855 as day surgeries and 1744 as endoscopy cases. 142 were not discharged as planned: 50 patients had their discharge delayed by up to 5 hours and 92 patients required overnight admission following a day-case procedure. This means that 3.9% of all DCU patients were not discharged as planned and 2.6% were admitted overnight. When only taking into account those patients who received a general anaesthetic or sedation in an operating theatre (n=1170), 64 patients (5.5%) were admitted to MDH.Conclusion: MDH has a reasonable rate of delayed discharges and unplanned admissions following day procedures, especially when compared with data from UK hospitals. However, there is still room for considerable improvement.

【 授权许可】

Unknown