Dataset Information

Surgeon- and hospital-level variation in wait times for scheduled non-urgent surgery in Ontario, Canada: A cross-sectional population-based study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Canadian health systems fare poorly in providing timely access to elective surgical care, which is crucial for quality, trust, and satisfaction.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of surgical wait times for adults receiving non-urgent cataract surgery, knee arthroplasty, hip arthroplasty, gallbladder surgery, and non-cancer uterine surgery in Ontario, Canada, between 2013 and 2019. We obtained data from the Wait Times Information System (WTIS) database. Inter- and intra-hospital and surgeon variations in wait time were described graphically with caterpillar plots. We used non-nested 3-level hierarchical random effects models to estimate variation partition coefficients, quantifying the proportion of wait time variance attributable to surgeons and hospitals.

Results

A total of 942,605 procedures at 107 healthcare facilities, conducted by 1,834 surgeons, were included in the analysis. We observed significant intra- and inter-provider variations in wait times across all five surgical procedures. Inter-facility median wait time varied between six-fold for gallbladder surgery and 15-fold for knee arthroplasty. Inter-surgeon variation was more pronounced, ranging from a 17-fold median wait time difference for cataract surgery to a 216-fold difference for non-cancer uterine surgery. The proportion of variation in wait times attributable to facilities ranged from 6.2% for gallbladder surgery to 23.0% for cataract surgery. In comparison, surgeon-related variation ranged from 16.0% for non-cancer uterine surgery to 28.0% for cataract surgery.

Implications

There is extreme variability in surgical wait times for five common, high-volume, non-urgent surgical procedures. Strategies to address surgical wait times must address the variation between service providers through better coordination of supply and demand. Approaches such as single-entry models could improve surgical system performance.

SUBMITTER: de Jager P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11309399 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Surgeon- and hospital-level variation in wait times for scheduled non-urgent surgery in Ontario, Canada: A cross-sectional population-based study.

de Jager Pieter P Aleman Dionne D Baxter Nancy N Bell Chaim C Bodur Merve M Calzavara Andrew A Campbell Robert R Carter Michael M Emerson Scott S Gagliardi Anna A Irish Jonathan J Martin Danielle D Lee Samantha S SaxeBraithwaite Marcy M Seyedi Pardis P Takata Julie J Yang Suting S Zanchetta Claudia C Urbach David R DR

PloS one 20240808 8

<h4>Background</h4>Canadian health systems fare poorly in providing timely access to elective surgical care, which is crucial for quality, trust, and satisfaction.<h4>Methods</h4>We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of surgical wait times for adults receiving non-urgent cataract surgery, knee arthroplasty, hip arthroplasty, gallbladder surgery, and non-cancer uterine surgery in Ontario, Canada, between 2013 and 2019. We obtained data from the Wait Times Information System (WTIS) database. Int ...[more]

PMID: 39116181

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Dataset Information

Surgeon- and hospital-level variation in wait times for scheduled non-urgent surgery in Ontario, Canada: A cross-sectional population-based study.

Background

Methods

Results

Implications

Publications

Surgeon- and hospital-level variation in wait times for scheduled non-urgent surgery in Ontario, Canada: A cross-sectional population-based study.

Similar Datasets

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