[Limited effect of Health Council guideline on outpatient preoperative evaluation clinics in the Netherlands: an inventory].
To investigate the current status of preoperative evaluation in the Netherlands and the implementation of the Health Council recommendations. Cross-sectional study. All Dutch anaesthesiologic partnerships and their hospital managers in February 2000 received a structured questionnaire about the existence of an outpatient evaluation clinic, possible problems in creating such a clinic and the contents of preoperative evaluation. We received responses of 101 (80%) and 111 (87%) from anaesthesiologists and managers, respectively. From 119 hospitals (94%) we received at least one useful questionnaire. On January 1, 2000, 24 (20%) hospitals had a complete and 36 (30%) a partial outpatient clinic. Within one year, 44% of the hospitals without a preoperative outpatient clinic expected to create one. The most common problem concerned financing this clinic. In hospitals with a complete clinic, anaesthesiologists were more often in employment (odds ratio (OR): 2.5; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.0-10.0) and a routinely performed physical examination by the anaesthesiologist (or under his or her responsibility) was also conducted more often (OR: 5.0; 95% CI: 1.6-15.0). Not every patient saw an anaesthesiologist before entering the operating room in 70% of all hospitals. In hospitals without outpatient clinic, 57% of the day-surgery patients contacted the anaesthesiologist in the operating room. The recommendations of the Health Council of the Netherlands with respect to contents and organisation of the preoperative evaluation had, 3 years after being published, limited effect.