1st International Conference on Recent Advances in Anaesthesiology (INCRAA - 2009), 30 Jan – 01 Feb 2009 · Nehru Auditorium, AIIMS New Delhi

Late cancellation of scheduled operations is a major cause of inefficient use of operating-room time and a waste of resources. Methods: We studied elective operating theatre bookings in general surgical discipline. On the day of surgery the intended list was noted and a list of cancellations with the reason was noted by the attending anaesthesiologist. Results: 1590 patients were scheduled for elective surgical procedures in 458 operation rooms. 30.3 % patients were cancelled on the day of surgery. Of these, 59.7% were cancelled due to lack of availability of theatre time, 10.8% were cancelled because of medical reasons and 16.2% did not turned up on the day of surgery.