Modified PADSS (Post Aenaesthetic Discharge Scoring System) for monitoring outpatient discharge
Piergaspare Palumbo 1, Guglielmo Tellan 1, Bruno Perotti 1, Maria Antonietta Pacilè 1, Francesco Vietri 1, Giulio Illuminati 1
Affiliation
Article Info
1 Department of Anaesthesiology, Department of Surgical Sciences “Raffaele Paolucci”, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy
Abstract
The decision to discharge a patient undergoing day surgery is a major step in the hospitalization pathway, because it must be achieved without compromising the quality of care, thus ensuring the same assistance and wellbeing as for a long-term stay. Therefore, the use of an objective assessment for the management of a fair and safe discharge is essential. The authors propose the Post Anaesthetic Discharge Scoring System (PADSS), which considers six criteria: vital signs, ambulation, nausea/vomiting, pain, bleeding and voiding. Each criterion is given a score ranging from 0 to 2. Only patients who achieve a score of 9 or more are considered ready for discharge. Furthermore, PADSS has been modified to ensure a higher level of safety, thus the “vital signs” criteria must never score lower than 2, and none of the other five criteria must ever be equal to 0, even if the total score reaches 9. The effectiveness of PADSS was analyzed on 2432 patients, by recording the incidence of postoperative complications and the readmission to hospital. So far PADDS has proved to be an efficient system that guarantees safe discharge.
Keywords
- Day surgery
- PADSS
- Safe discharge

