“Our findings support prioritizing high-risk patients for anesthesia consults so that we can safely get these individuals through surgery and back home”- Dr. Daniel McIsaacMore patients are seeing an anesthesiologist before surgery as the surgical population ages and faces more complex health issues. While previous studies have shown these consults reduce the time a patient spends in hospital, their impact on other patient-centered outcomes is unknown. 

To learn more, Dr. Daniel McIsaac’s team used Ontario healthcare data to look at all patients 40 years and older who had intermediate to high-risk non-cardiac surgeries from 2009 to 2017. Of the 364,149 patients in this study published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, 75 percent had an anesthesia consult. 

The team found these consults were not associated with a greater number of days alive and at home within 30 days of surgery. However, among high-risk patients (including those with heart disease and frailty), consults were linked with a 15% relative decrease in mortality, as well as spending significantly more days alive and at home after surgery.

“Our findings support prioritizing high-risk patients for anesthesia consults so that we can safely get these individuals through surgery and back home,” says Dr. Daniel McIsaac.

Authors: Jake S. Engel, Weiwei Beckerleg, Duminda N. Wijeysundera, Sylvie Aucoin, Julien Leblanc, Sylvain Gagne, Gregory L. Bryson, Manoj M. Lalu, Anna Wyand, Daniel I. McIsaac

Funding and support: This study was supported by ICES, which is funded by an annual grant from the Ontario Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of Long-Term Care (MLTC). All research at The Ottawa Hospital is also enabled by generous donations to The Ottawa Hospital Foundation.

Core resources: ICES uOttawa

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