Recommendations emerging from a data analytics project have helped OR leaders at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, better anticipate daily surgical case volume and share that information with their managers. Data gleaned from the project are now being used to predict staffing needs for the OR, anesthesia department,…

Read More

Theoretical advantages exist for both block and nonblock scheduling. Facilities with enough space and staff may be able to schedule cases on the basis of patient and surgeon convenience, but that doesn’t work for facilities with less flexibility. At our facility, problems associated with first-come, first-served booking led to an…

Read More

Turnover time and first case on-time starts are a common problem in most ORs, so leaders are always seeking ideas for improvement. OR Manager recently spoke with two leaders who have had remarkable success in each of these areas.   The Dartmouth-Hitchcock experience When the average turnover time (TOT) at…

Read More

Editor's Note Simple changes in preadmission testing and OR scheduling, including appointing a senior nurse anesthetist to help direct OR use, resulted in improvements in OR efficiency and case volume in this study. Substantial improvement was seen in first case on-time starts (39% to 84%), as well as utilization of…

Read More

Block scheduling can be one of the most contentious issues that OR leaders face, but its effectiveness as an efficiency—and therefore cost management—tool makes it worth pursuing. Implementing block scheduling requires time, finesse, and dedication. James X. Stobinski, PhD, RN, CNOR, says it’s easy for OR managers to underestimate the…

Read More

In many surgery departments, schedule management is a daily struggle. Staff work hard to manage case requests, juggle resources, and respond to changes, but errors, inefficiencies, and general frustration persist. The results are frequent case delays and cancellations, low utilization, high costs, low staff morale, and poor surgeon satisfaction. The…

Read More

Sacred Heart Medical Center RiverBend in Springfield, Oregon, began OR optimization efforts soon after moving to a new facility in August 2008. Because of the US economic downturn around that same time, the hospital launched several initiatives to make the most of available resources, including a Lean process to improve…

Read More

OR Business Performance is a series intended to help OR managers and directors improve the success of their business.   The OR labor budget usually takes a back seat to supplies and equipment. But labor costs can still create significant spending problems. Many hospital surgery departments use nursing full-time equivalents…

Read More

OR Business Performance is a series intended to help OR managers and directors improve the success of their business.   How do you improve an OR’s financial performance? Last month’s column focused on two key strategies: using data to identify improvement opportunities and rallying support for organizational change. These strategies…

Read More

Ten elements of safer surgery. Second in a series.   Much of the effort to ensure correct-site surgery focuses on preoperative verification. But scheduling is where it all begins. Capturing complete and accurate information when the case is booked is key to preventing errors down the line. Scheduling flaws are…

Read More