Challenges and Solutions during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Hospitalization and Performance in Elective Pediatric Surgeries.

: This retrospective study aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the most frequently performed elective pediatric surgical procedures and the number of hospitalizations and compare it to the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods. : The subjects were patients under 18 years of age who were regularly admitted for selected elective procedures in a single tertiary center in Croatia from 1 March to 31 August of 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Data were collected from the electronic logs of surgical procedures and hospital admissions, logs of one-day surgeries, patients' medical records, and discharge letters.