Upcoming webinar covers 6 key metrics to improve OR capacity

Editor's Note

A recent OR Manager Conference presentation on enhancing OR efficiency and transparency—and, in turn, hospital profitability—is coming to the web.

Tune in live this Thursday, November 14 at 1 pm EST, when leaders from LiveData will offer an encore presentation detailing how a medical center in the southeastern US increased their OR throughput after widespread pandemic slowdowns. However, initial improvements led to a new challenge: with over a dozen hospitals and ASCs nearby, local practices held out for visible scheduling improvements before filling the hospital’s newly-created capacity. The solution? Leveraging additional data-driven insights to further optimize operations and grow case volume by 6%.

Presented by Jeffrey Oliver, CCNS, CNOR, clinical support specialist, the session zeroes in on the following six metrics as being key to the health center’s success:

• Data transparency, accessibility. Oliver emphasized the importance of establishing reliable, accurate data as a “source of truth” for all stakeholders. OR metrics must be easily accessible to key staff and presented in a straightforward format to foster trust and effective decision-making.
• Block utilization. Efficient use of OR blocks is essential for income generation and institutional stability. Research shows that utilization tends to drop as the week progresses, with Mondays generally having the fewest late starts. This knowledge can help hospitals improve scheduling practices to optimize room use and reduce non-utilization costs.
• Case mix, daily distribution. To maximize OR utilization, hospitals should analyze case mix and distribution by day, optimizing the balance between inpatient and outpatient cases to align with overall performance goals. Aligning short procedures together can help reduce idle time and improve efficiency.
• First case on-time starts. Ensuring prompt starts for the day’s first surgery helps maintain schedule integrity. Data from a hospital that implemented LiveData’s OR-ready system showed a 12% improvement in on-time starts after targeting barriers like communication gaps and surgeon tardiness. By implementing accountability measures and automated reminders, leaders at this site improved punctuality significantly.
• Turnover time optimization. Reducing turnover time remains a challenge due to staffing shortages and room variability. Successful turnover initiatives involve streamlining handovers, setting realistic goals, and fostering shared accountability between nursing, surgical, and environmental services teams. For one client, changes in turnover practices reduced time by 21 minutes per case.
• Real-time scheduling access. Providing surgeons with real-time access to the OR schedule and open time slots encourages them to bring cases to the facility. A client of LiveData saw a 3% growth in case volume after introducing scheduling transparency, with practices able to book OR time during patient consultations, reducing wait times and enhancing patient satisfaction.

“When an OR is run efficiently, it can improve access to care, it can positively impact patient satisfaction as well as staff satisfaction, and it can improve a hospital's bottom line,” Oliver said during his presentation at the October 28 at the OR Manager Conference in Las Vegas. “But there's a lot of variability, and there are a lot of nuances when we're talking about OR utilization. As leaders, we really are charged with monitoring that data, addressing those variances, and then optimizing those workflows and that efficiency. And this is not easy.”