Postoperative home visits?

Purpose: Because most surgery patients now recover at home rather than in the hospital, we wanted to determine whether postoperative home visits by the operating surgeon would improve medical outcomes, and whether this innovation would strengthen resident training.

Methods: A surgeon who had performed 347 procedures during a 7-month period attempted to do a home visit to each patient within 48 hours after surgery.

Results: Many patients had to be disqualified for various reasons, leaving 143 candidates. Of these, 44 declined to be seen, and others could not be located, so that 82 were actually visited. There were no readmissions, and no findings that might have altered the course of postoperative treatment.

Conclusions: These visits seemed to reinforce patient-physician relationships, but they did not influence medical outcomes. It was felt that a phone call would probably have done as well. In addition, because of new regulations governing resident working hours, it did not appear that this was a feasible educational experience.