Abstract
BackgroundCOVID-19 has overwhelmed many health care systems which has affected the landscape of elective surgery. A pandemic driven protocol was developed to perform foregut surgeries as a Same Day Surgery (SDS) discharge for all comers to reduce resource utilization. MethodsRetrospective review of all patients who underwent elective laparoscopic foregut surgery (hiatal hernia, paraesophageal hernia, heller myotomy, and fundoplication) from 8/1/2020–1/31/2022 by a single surgeon after the implementation of a SDS protocol. Patients were compared to a pre-pandemic cohort, from 8/1/2019–4/30/2020, when overnight admission was standard practice. ResultsThere were 36 pre-pandemic patients, and 41 pandemic patients successfully discharged the same day of surgery. We failed to detect a statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding 30-day ED visit rate (p-value of 0.4557) and 30-day readmission rate (p-value of 0.6790). ConclusionThe creation of a SDS protocol for foregut surgery is a safe way to deliver much needed care to the community while decreasing resource utilization.
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