Prevention of bed-blockers and delayed discharge in surgery

The aim of this thesis was to identify causes of "delay in discharge and bed-blocking" in surgical departments. To define differences between patients who had delays and who didn''t have during their hospitalization and to compare these two groups. It was proven that delay in discharge has effect on waiting lists and quality of patient care. It decreases as well capacity to deal with emergency admissions. Hospitalization is leading to complications other that the disease entity for which the patient was admitted.Psychologically, long hospital stays adversely affect patient''s morale by delaying a return to normality and prolonging the disruption to family life. In my research, different factors have been associated with delayed discharge, such as age, feminine sex, B.M.I., physical activity, diabetes, smoking and administrative inefficiencies. It was proven that most delays and bed-blockers were worthless and possible to prevent by means of early detection of complications. Avoiding bed blockers is in everyone''s interest and may be possible without incurring great cost by modification of assessment procedures.