Exploring the lengthiest ambulatory breast surgery clinic appointments: is the patient the problem?

• Published in: Gland surgery 2021-02, Vol.10 (2), p.551-558
• Main Authors: Kagedan, Daniel J, Takabe, Kazuaki
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Original
• ISSN: 2227-684X; 2227-8575
• DOI: 10.21037/gs-20-623

Prolonged outpatient clinic appointments can disrupt schedules, impacting patients and providers. We sought to define features of the longest ambulatory appointments in a breast surgery clinic, and to ascertain whether patients attending these appointments consistently have protracted appointments. A single-institution retrospective cohort study was conducted of breast surgery clinic patients, January 2017 to May 2019, and the longest 1% of appointments identified using a real-time patient tracking system. A primary chart review was performed, and data abstracted. Other appointments attended by these patients were identified, and the ratio of appointments >75th percentile duration (protracted appointments) to the total appointments during the study period was calculated, enabling comparison for patients with consistently protracted (ratio >50%) sporadically protracted appointments (≤50%). Descriptive analysis was performed, and results reported as medians with inter-quartile ranges. A total of 15,265 clinic appointments were identified, and the longest 148 (exceeding 244 minutes) analyzed. Median appointment length was 264 minutes (inter-quartile range: 253-290). 70% were new patient appointments, and 54% of patients underwent a test/investigation that day. A minority were obese (39%), smokers (41%), diagnosed with a psychiatric comorbidity (34%), had a genetic cancer syndrome (22%), or received unexpected news at their appointment (16%). Of 118 patients with multiple appointments, 26% had consistently protracted appointments and 74% sporadically protracted appointments. The lengthiest appointments are usually newly diagnosed cancer patients. Only a minority of patients have consistently protracted appointments, implying that a patient's previously prolonged appointment may not predict future long appointments.