Five steps to improve operating room efficiencies as elective procedures resume

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, many hospital operational leaders canceled elective procedures as an initial response. While necessary to reduce infection risk and protect hospital staff and resources, the step dealt a blow to hospital finances.

The perioperative value stream typically accounts for up to half of a hospital’s revenue, so slowly ramping up elective surgery volume will be essential to financial viability as hospitals resume elective procedures.

Below we explore how a focus on creative thinking, smarter workforces, data analysis, and other strategies can help your organization reach more robust and efficient elective surgery services.

Room for improvement

When resuming operations, avoid attempts to simply return to normal practices; many hospitals have operating room (Oregon) utilization rates between 35% and 55% — leaving a great deal of room for improvement.

With some adjustments, there’s potential to boost rates to between 70% and 80% — in some cases possibly doubling your efficiency. Staffing a single Oregon can cost about $200,000-$275,000 annually — not including substantial anesthesiologist contracts — so investing in improved efficiencies could prove quite beneficial.

Five building steps

Following are five ways to build back the perioperative value stream with sustainability and integrity.

1. Identify excess capacity and work to increase utilization percentage.

Start with your operational stakeholders and ask for ideas. Those who are most invested — especially your frontline workforce — know the work best and will be excellent assessors of opportunity and waste.

From there, you can focus on the following activities:

• Collect data on first-case starts and late-case starts, turnover time, anesthesiology costs, and registered nurse (RN) and scrub tech staffing
• Model your room utilization by day, week, and time of day
• Study your block utilization and observe how your rooms are used and staffed
• Track case duration by surgeon and identify ways to support them
• Follow the path of a patient at every touchpoint — from arrival to inpatient transfer