Background: Although elective outpatient surgery is commonplace, surgeons remain hesitant to discharge patients the same day after emergent surgery. We created a formal protocol to select patients for early discharge after laparoscopic appendectomy for acute appendicitis, and we assessed its safety and potential cost savings.
Study design: We matched patients who were discharged early from the recovery room with similar patients from a control group on the basis of age ± 3 years, presence or absence of a comorbidity, laparoscopic procedure, and nonperforated appendicitis; we compared them to assess the impact of early discharge on morbidity, return visits to the emergency room, and total cost incurred by our institution.
Results: During the first year of our protocol, 72 of 161 (45%) patients who presented with acute appendicitis and underwent appendectomy were discharged early, with a median post-operative length of stay of 4.7 hours. When compared with matched controls, patients discharged early had similar complication rates (4.3% early group vs 7.1%, p = 0.72) and number of postoperative visits to the emergency room (11.4% vs 11.4%, p = 0.8), but had a reduced median length of stay (4.7 vs 16.2 hours, p < 0.001) and an average reduction in cost of $323.46 per patient.
Conclusions: Adoption of a protocol to select patients for early discharge after laparoscopic appendectomy resulted in a 45% reduction in the need for in-hospital beds, with no negative impact on return visits to the emergency room or number of complications. This translates to an approximate savings of $323 per patient when compared with standard care.
Copyright © 2010 American College of Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.