Introduction:

Cancellation of scheduled surgeries is a quality indicator that may be associated to inefficient strategic planning processes for patient safety. It is frequently observed in health institutions.

Objective:

To identify the causes of cancellation of scheduled surgeries during the second quarter of 2016 in a tertiary care clinic in the city of Popayán, Colombia.

Materials and methods:

Descriptive, retrospective cross-sectional study. 185 surgeries were canceled out of 2 787 scheduled. The information was obtained from the digital records stored at the surgery coordination office of the institution under study. The causes were classified according to the actors involved in the General System of Social Security in Health (SGSSS): insurer, provider and patient.

Results:

The cancellation ratio was 2.7%, and 56.7% of the causes were attributed to the patient, 40.5% to the provider and 2.7% to the insurer.

Conclusions:

The causes of cancellation of scheduled surgeries identified are highly preventable and show organizational and procedural failures that require administrative and assistance improvement to reduce non-quality costs.

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