Background: Women’s College Hospital, Toronto, Canada, offers specialized ambulatory surgical procedures. Patients often travel great distances to undergo surgery. Most patients receiving ambulatory surgery have a low rate of postoperative events necessitating clinic visits. However, regular follow-up is still considered important in the early postoperative phase. Increasingly, telemedicine is ...

Summary statement: In non-cardiac surgical patients, respiratory failure index and intensivists’ (expert) opinion predicted postoperative mortality and respiratory failure. Intermediate risk patients allocated to postoperative ICU care vs. surgical high intensity care demonstrated increasing lengths of hospital stay. Background: No guidance exists for allocating postoperative ICU resources for ...

Postoperative radiographs have become standard after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction, even though few findings in the literature substantiate their efficacy. The goal of this study was to determine whether routine postoperative radiographs were cost-effective in patients undergoing ACL reconstruction. In addition, the authors sought to determine whether these radiographs provide...

We audited verbal handover of information by anaesthetists to recovery room nurses based on Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation. In Audit A, 100 handovers for elective procedures were included. For audit B, a second cohort of 100 patients was examined post educational session. There was an improvement in handover of medical background (46.15% Audit A, 77% Audit B, p < 0.001) an...

As the population ages, the health care system must to adapt to the needs of the older population. Hospitalization risks are particularly significant in the frail geriatric patients, with costly and morbid consequences. Appropriate preoperative assessment can identify sources of increased risk and enable the surgical team to manage this risk, through "prehabilitation," intraoperative modificati...

BACKGROUND Delirium after cardiac surgery is a common complication in cardiovascular intensive care units. The prevalence of delirium and its likely risk factors have not previously been explored in a single sample of postoperative cardiac patients in an intensive care unit. OBJECTIVE To compare a variety of characteristics in patients with and without delirium and to identify risk factors as...

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE Abdominal surgical procedures increase pulmonary complication risks. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of chest physiotherapy during the immediate postoperative period among patients undergoing elective upper abdominal surgery. DESIGN AND SETTING This randomized clinical trial was performed in the post-anesthesia care unit of a public university hos...

Background Several methodological challenges make randomised trials (RCTs) in surgery difficult, and whether surgical interventions are themselves complex is an issue that requires further exploration [1]. Surgical interventions have multiple concomitant parts that may independently and inter-dependently influence outcomes such as the operation itself, surgeon expertise and contextual factors s...