If you want to fine-tune the block schedule, now may be the time. A silver lining of the recession is that surgeons and staff may be more accepting of changes to the schedule than they might be otherwise. With the decline in elective surgery from the economic downturn, surgeons are…

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What criteria should be used to make decisions about adjusting block time? Traditionally, OR committees have used surgeons' utilization of blocks. But OR utilization isn't the best way to make this decision, the research shows. The method to use depends on why block time is being adjusted, notes Franklin Dexter,…

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Achieving on-time starts can be elusive for OR leaders, including those at Memorial University Medical Center (MUMC) in Savannah, Georgia. Faced with a dismal 27% on-time starts for the first cases of the day in their 21-room OR, the leaders applied Six Sigma principles to the process. The result? A…

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OR holds slow the entire hospital's throughput. "What happens in the OR doesn't stay in the OR—it affects the whole system," says Christy Dempsey, RN, MBA, CNOR, senior vice president of clinical operations for PatientFlow Technology, Inc, Boston. The emergency department (ED) and ICU are particularly hard hit. Holds can…

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Getting the right case in the right room at the right time is the goal for every OR director. Often, though, defining how well the OR suite runs depends on whom you ask. The question, "Are my ORs efficient?" could be could be answered with a qualitative approach by administering…

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