Late cancellations of scheduled elective surgery limit the ability of the surgical care service to achieve its goals. Attributes of these cancellations differ between hospitals and regions. The rate of late cancellations of elective surgery conducted in Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar was found to be 13.14% which is similar to rates reported in hospitals elsewhere in the world; although ele...

This document gives an overview of the Next Steps in Signaling (NSIS) framework and protocol suite created by the NSIS Working Group during the period of 2001-2010. It also includes suggestions on how the industry can make use of the new protocols and how the community can exploit the extensibility of both the framework and existing protocols to address future signaling needs.