Patient compliance with preoperative instructions prior to an elective procedure: A quality improvement audit.

Abstract

Prior to undergoing an elective procedure, patients are given instructions regarding which medications to with-hold or continue, are told to fast from a certain time, and complete an informed consent process for their procedure. Failure to understand and comply with this information can have significant patient safety, health economic and medicolegal implications. We aimed to determine the prevalence of incomplete compliance with medication and fasting instructions and incomplete knowledge of the procedure for which they had consented in our hospital. A quality improvement audit was performed on patients undergoing an elective procedure at a major tertiary hospital in Sydney over a two-week period in July 2020 and over another two-week period in July 2021. The project met New South Wales Health guidelines for a quality improvement activity not requiring ethics review, 1 which was confirmed by the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District Human Research Ethics Committee.