How will artificial intelligence impact surgical patient care? Part 2
As part of a special series on artificial intelligence (AI), OR Manager is taking a deep dive into the many facets of this new technology and its impact on patient care. Part 1 of this introduction to the series (OR Manager, May 2019, 1, 7-11) defined several different types of…
New technology and workflow lead to surgical volume growth
Sarasota Memorial Health Care System (SMH) in Sarasota, Florida, is a Level 2 trauma center with 839 beds and more than 900 physicians. The 430 members of the surgical staff perform more than 24,300 inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures in the 34 operating suites each year. With this level of…
Study: Outcomes with overlapping surgery
Editor's Note This study from a large academic medical center finds that the practice of overlapping surgery does not expose patients to increased risk of negative outcomes. Data on operative procedures from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2015 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, were used to compare…
Block schedule best practices: Calculate, allocate, and regulate
A common strategy for managing OR utilization is block scheduling: Assigning surgical time to individual surgeons or surgeon groups based on their volume. But what sounds like a simple process is often complicated by the potential for dissatisfaction and reduced utilization. Yet done effectively, block scheduling can significantly boost the…
Room utilization rises with dynamic block scheduling
Inefficiencies in surgical case scheduling can lead to large revenue losses. When leaders at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center (SHMC) in Spokane, Washington, realized poor room utilization was the cause of more than $1 million in annual overtime costs, they knew that better planning was needed. “For every 60 minutes…
Surgical Council facilitates service line moves between hospitals
To improve healthcare delivery and eliminate duplication, hospitals are banding together into systems in which specialties such as labor and delivery and smaller surgical cases are performed at satellite hospitals, and larger, more complex procedures are done at the main campus. This is the approach taken at the Cleveland Clinic,…
Electronic scheduling system radically improves OR workflow
Between the expanding population and the increasing number of surgical procedures being performed, demand for surgical services is climbing. One study has predicted a 14% to 47% increase in surgical demand across all surgical fields by 2020. Given the high cost of operations, an efficient workflow is paramount, and there…
START makes a good case for greater scheduling accuracy
Accurate OR case scheduling is a key performance indicator that is challenging to manage. The published literature often focuses on scheduling algorithms using historical data, the surgeon’s own estimate, or a mix of similar procedures. This mathematical approach neglects the cultural, economic, behavioral, and process challenges that impact attempts to…
ECRI Institute white paper on staffing and scheduling
Editor's Note The ECRI Institute has issued a white paper titled, “Responsive staffing and scheduling in aging services: A systems rethinking approach.” Problems in staffing and scheduling can lead to potentially dangerous conditions, which can cause performance gaps in delivery of care and services. To better address these problems, providers…
Implications of patient age, ASA status on OR management decisions
Editor's Note Evaluation of patient age and American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status as variables can help OR managers better predict turnaround times, which can facilitate scheduling, this study finds. Researchers developed models of turnaround times of 13, 632 OR procedures with respect to multiple variables including surgical schedule,…
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