Yearly amount of surgical emergencies in relation to the total surgical volume of the university hospital of Münster

Introduction Besides elective surgeries there are urgent emergencies that have to be treated surgically during the night or at the weekend in the ENT clinic of an university hospital. This study evaluated the frequency and workload caused by surgical emergencies to evaluate possible consequences on the currently employed on-call service model of the medical team.

Methods The period from January 1^st to December 31^st 2018 was retrospectively analyzed for the amount of surgical emergencies, time period between first contact with the clinic and arriving at the operation room as well as the influence caused by weekday, weekend or public holidays.

Results In 2018 214 surgical emergencies have been performed in the ENT clinic of the university hospital of Münster: 99 surgeries had to be performed at weekends, 20 on (public) holidays and 95 on weekdays. Depending on the triage, the time period from first clinic contact to arriving at the operation room differed from 00:01 to 21:50 hours. The share of surgical emergencies was 5,8 % of the total amount of surgeries in 2018.

Discussion Our evaluation indicated that in more than every second emergency service an urgent surgery had to be performed, which suggests a comparably high workload. An experienced team of anesthesiologists capabel with difficult airway management is required at any time taking into account that there is more than one highly urgent surgery per week. Differences in processing the triage were identified among duty doctors as well as doctors being on-call, despite the current standardized triage system. Fulfilling objective diagnosis and standardized triage by all doctors is desirable to maintain quality standards, reduce workload und minimize complication rates.

Poster-PDF A-1768.PDF

Publication History

Article published online:
10 June 2020