Waiting for elective surgery: a qualitative analysis and conceptual framework of the consequences of delay

The acceptability of waiting times for elective general surgery and the appropriateness of prioritising patients

“…Each vignette described a patient by four characteristics: the physical symptoms, the psychological distress, the social limitations, and impairments in work. These characteristics were selected on the basis of interviews with experts on the consequences of waiting [1] and existing literature on generic priority criteria for waiting lists [16]. Three possible levels were defined for each characteristic, based on the range in outcomes of an earlier study on the consequences of waiting for surgery among patients with the three disorders [23].…”

“…Although waiting lists can serve a purpose in rationing scarce resources, overly long delays of necessary treatment can have widespread negative consequences [1] and threaten the principles of providing timely and equitable access to care. Consequently, responsible health authorities have attached high importance to addressing problematic waiting times, amongst others in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands.…”

Waiting for elective general surgery: impact on health related quality of life and psychosocial consequences

“…In general, waiting lists are comprised of patients whose conditions are not immediately life-threatening and permit treatment to be provided on an elective basis. However, long delays of needed treatment have raised public and political concern, as they could entail diverse negative consequences for patients [6] and subsequently pose a threat to the quality of care. Studies among patients waiting for cardiac or orthopaedic surgery have for instance shown that waiting is associated with deterioration of symptoms [7,8], affected quality of life [8,9] and even death of listed patients [10,11].…”

An elective surgery scheduling problem considering patient priority

“…. Patients waiting can lead to loss of opportunity for care, which may result in higher health care costs due to additional treatments [29,30] and lower quality of life [31]. Existing literature on the value of waiting time for surgery has focused on the productivity costs such as income loss, community service such as home help, medical treatment at home and hospital stay [32], and utility loss [33].…”