Late Operating Room Start Times Impact Mortality and Cost for Nonemergent Cardiac

The University of Virginia group retrospectively analyzed all non-emergent cardiac cases performed at their center from 2008 to 2013, and separated the  nonemergent cases into two groups:  “Early start” cases had an incision time before 3 PM, and “late start” cases, after 3 PM.  After controlling for case type, surgeon, year, and risk, late cases resulted in greater than double the operative mortality of early cases.