Results
During the 15-month study period 212 patients underwent nonelective abdominal surgery and formed the study cohort (Fig. 1). Patient characteristics are summarized in Table 1. The median length of stay was 8.0 (interquartile range [IQR] 4.0–16.5) days. The length of stay was truncated for 7 (3.3%) patients in the study. Eighty-eight percent of patient-days in hospital were spent in a ward bed, 7% were in the IMCU and 5% were in the ICU. Overall, 110 (51.9%) patients experienced a least 1 nonfatal complication.