Clearing the surgical backlog caused by COVID-19 in Ontario: a time series modelling study

We used the Discharge Abstract cancer, cardiac and vascular disease) and to accelerate care in Database and the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System the case of other surgical conditions (e.g., joint replacement, cat- for duration of operating room time and ward and intensive aract surgery) to minimize the impact of disability on patients. [...] We cal- diac, we used the CorHealth Ontario Cardiac Registry for vol- culated the backlog size as the difference between the expected ume and attrition estimates, and for transplant, we used and the observed number of surgeries during the aforemen- Trillium’s Organ and Tissue Allocation System for volume and tioned time period. [...] We rounded Estimating the resources required to clear the backlog down the throughput in an 8-hour day, to represent the number The key resources required to clear the backlog are operating of full surgeries accomplished per day. [...] MOHLTC and is dedicated to improving the quality, efficiency, The provincial average weekly resources required to clear access and equity in the delivery of the continuum of adult car- all surgery types in the backlog are 719 operating room hours diovascular, vascular and stroke services in Ontario, Canada. [...] The work performed for the Claudia Zanchetta and Jonathan Irish contrib- series modelling of surgical volume data may submitted manuscript is unrelated to any of uted to the conception and design of the work.