ArticleCureus2024
Early Discharge and Patient-Initiated Follow-Up in Hand Surgery: A New Norm Following Simple Hand Surgery?
Article in Cureus, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07041528 (How Do Patients and Health Care Professionals Perceive De-implementation of Routine Follow-ups After Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty? Protocol for a Nested Qualitative Study Within a Hybrid De-implementation Trial), which is not on this map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
How Do Patients and Health Care Professionals Perceive De-implementation of Routine Follow-ups After Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty? Protocol for a Nested Qualitative Study Within a Hybrid De-implementation Trial
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Patient-initiated follow-up in surgical specialties: meta-analysis and meta-regression.BJS open · 2026Pooled it
- Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsThe demand for elective hand surgery has increased substantially over the last 10 years. With COVID-19 providing an added challenge of restrictions on face-to-face consultations, already overflowing follow-up clinics will be stressed further. Our aim is to assess the viability, effectiveness, and safety of an early discharge directly from the operating theatre following common hand surgery procedures with the safety net of open-access follow-up.
methodsAll eligible patients undergoing open-hand surgery under local anaesthesia between February 2019 and December 2020 were offered early discharge. Informed consent was obtained in the clinic, and they were counselled on rehabilitation immediately prior to surgery. Patients were given a custom-made "open-access business card" with clear post-operative instructions and hand exercises, along with information on how to get in touch to request clinic follow-up. A review was completed at a minimum of two months following surgery. Administrative support staff were briefed beforehand to minimise any delays in follow-up requests and either book patients who requested follow-up into a routine elective clinic or utilise ring-fenced emergency elective clinic slots depending on the patient's individual requirements.
resultsA total of 105 patients were included in this study, with an average age of 60 years. The average interval between surgery and review was 20 weeks. Eighty-nine patients had a successful early discharge, with 16 patients requesting clinic follow-up. The average time to follow up in the clinic was 35 weeks (range: four to 84 weeks). There were no complications that we were made aware of, and the most common reason for returning to the clinic was a new complaint, unrelated to the surgery.
conclusionsAlthough virtual follow-up is now well established in both the fracture and elective clinic settings, early discharge is largely uncharted water. Our pilot demonstrates that early discharge and patient-initiated follow-up for common elective hand surgical procedures under local anaesthesia are efficient, safe, and viable.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.