Introduction:

Surgical deferral since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic represents a risk to the health of patients and a challenge for health institutions. The metric of productivity indicators in the operating room, such as the surgical deferral rate, will provide us with information to plan strategies based on scientific evidence that allow us to improve the quality of care.

Objective:

To determine the surgical deferral rate during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Material and methods:

A retrospective, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out in which 297 patients whose surgeries were deferred during the period from March 11, 2020 to March 10, 2021 were analyzed. Descriptive statistics were employed, using measures of central tendency and dispersion, simple frequencies and proportions. Additionally, a Pareto diagram was made. The information was processed with SPSS v-25.0.

Results:

The deferral rate was 7.34%. 20.92% of the causes were attributed to the patient, 31.65% to medical causes and 47.49% logistic-administrative.

Conclusion:

The established causes of surgical deferral are avoidable and reveal failures in the logistical-administrative processes that require continuous improvement plans.

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