Core competenciesEfficiency of the operating room suite
Section snippets
Methods
The study was performed prospectively in a surgical suite consisting of 10 ORs in a metropolitan teaching public medical center, and focused on two general surgery and two orthopedic departments that account for more than 70% of the surgical volume. It was conducted over 30 days that were randomly selected from 90 working days, excluding weekends and holidays. The study period also included on call days, in which the relevant departments were receiving all new emergency room admissions, thus
Phase 1, before intervention
A total of 814 operations were performed in the relevant period, on patients aged 63 ± 4 years, 42% of whom were male, and 72% of them took place in daytime shifts (7 am to 11 pm). The relative load on the two general surgery and two orthopedic departments was similar. Of these, 102 operations met the inclusion criteria that the surgery was scheduled but was not performed.
Overall, almost 79 hours were wasted, ie, almost three quarters of an OR’s working day each week, and they accounted for 15%
Comments
The frequent changes in resources, objectives, and methods of health provision in contemporary medical systems necessitate repeated assessment of all its aspects[1], [2]. The dictate to economize and the reality of reduced investment oblige hospitals, regardless of their economic autonomy, to provide the best possible and competitive health care services with increased efficiency.
The present study compared OR time nonutilization by two general surgery and two orthopedic departments that carry
References (16)
- et al.
Is operating room resuscitation a way to save time?
Am J Surg
(1997) - et al.
Cost containment in anesthesiologya survey of department activities
J Clin Anesth
(1997) - et al.
Operating room time is a terrible thing to wastean operating room work-improvement project
Insight
(1998) - et al.
What can the postanesthesia care unit manager do to decrease costs in the postanesthesia care unit
J Perianesth Nurs
(1999) - et al.
Surgical unit time utilization reviewresource utilization and management implications
J Med Syst
(1988) - et al.
Where are the costs in perioperative care? Analysis of hospital costs and charges for inpatient surgical care
Anesthesiology
(1995) - et al.
Successful strategies for improving operating room efficiency at academic institutions
Anesth Analg
(1998) Successful strategies for improving operating room efficiency at academic institutions
Anesth Analg
(1999)
Cited by (100)
The impact of a teaching staff availability on educational process and OR efficiency in academic hospital
2021, Perioperative Care and Operating Room ManagementCitation Excerpt :OR production is a direct derivative of efficiency, which in turn greatly depends on surgical operating time. Recent studies show that the waste of surgical operating time is the most significant barrier to cost reduction in the OR16,17 Monetization of healthcare, while minimally affecting the private sector due to its inherent “for profit” orientation, creates a considerable barrier for the educational process.
Surgical tray reduction for cost saving in pediatric surgical cases: A qualitative systematic review
2020, Journal of Pediatric SurgeryDesigning a cost-driven mechanism to reduce cancellation of elective surgeries
2020, Perioperative Care and Operating Room ManagementTwo metaheuristics for solving no-wait operating room surgery scheduling problem under various resource constraints
2018, Computers and Industrial EngineeringCitation Excerpt :Different optimization methods have been considered for surgery scheduling, such as coupling simulation and optimization (Ahmed & Alkhamis, 2009), column-generation (Fei et al., 2010; Lamiri, Xie, & Zhang, 2008; Hossein, Doulabi, Rousseau, & Pesant, 2014), mixed integer linear programming (Erdem, Qu, & Shi, 2012; Latorre-Núñez et al., 2016), lagrangian relaxation heuristic (Lamiri & Xie, 2006; Yin, Zhou, & Lu, 2016; Augusto, Xie, & Perdomo, 2010) branch and bound (Cardoen et al., 2009; Yin, Zhou, & Lu, 2016), ant colony optimization (Xiang et al., 2015a; Gu, Liu, & Xiang, 2015; Xiang, Yin, & Lim, 2015b), simulated annealing (Hans, Wullink, van Houdenhoven, & Kazemier, 2008; Beliën, Demeulemeester, & Cardoen, 2009), tabu search (Beliën et al., 2009), genetic algorithm (GA) (Latorre-Núñez et al., 2016; Lee & Yih, 2014; Roland, Di Martinelly, Riane, & Pochet, 2010; Guo, Wu, Li, Song, & Rong, 2016), hybrid genetic algorithm (Fei et al., 2010), etc. In addition, several objective functions and performance criteria have been considered, such as minimizing the makespan criteria (Weinbroum et al., 2003; Latorre-Núñez et al., 2016; Dekhici & Belkadi, 2010), minimizing the makespan, overtime and other criteria (Meskens, Duvivier, & Hanset, 2013), minimizing overtime, cost, operating room utilization and idle time criteria (Fei et al., 2010), and minimizing total completion time, idle time and other criteria (Lee & Yih, 2014), etc. Many researchers expanded the scope of research on surgical scheduling problems by taking into account multiple human and material resources that are involved in the operating process, i.e., before, during and after the surgery.
Multi-period and multi-resource operating room scheduling under uncertainty: A case study
2018, Computers and Industrial EngineeringWalk a Mile in the Leadership's Shoes: Why Focus on Quality Improvement?
2018, Orthopedic Clinics of North America