Effect of percentage of overlapping surgery on patient outcomes

Editor's Note

In this study, led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, overlapping surgery was shown to reduce in-hospital mortality and to have similar patient safety indicators and readmission rates as nonoverlapping cases. Operative time was shown to increase with overlapping cases.

A total of 87,426 cases were included in the analysis—62,332 without overlap (Group 0); 10,514 with 1% to 25% overlap (Group 1); 5,303 with 26% to 50% overlap (Group 2); 4,296 with 51% to 75% overlap (Group 3); and 4,981 with more than 75% overlap (Group 4).

Among the findings:

• In-hospital mortality decreased as overlap increased
• Operative time increased with increasing overlap
• Readmission rates were not statistically different between groups
• Rates of patient safety indicators were lower for Groups 1, 2, and 3 (1.69%, 2.01%, and 2.08%, respectively), compared to Group 0 (2.24%)
• Group 4 had the highest rate of patient safety indicators (2.35%).

The researchers concluded that the percentage of overlapping surgery did not detrimentally affect most patient outcomes, especially with overlap of less than 75%.