surgeon's office sends that information to the surgery center or hospi-
tal so it can formulate its schedule in conjunction with the surgeon's
schedule.
Two days before surgery, the center calls all patients — 12 to 14 in 2
rooms — to confirm their arrival time. On the day before surgery, the
center calls patients again to confirm them.
"I don't want to schedule a flip situation where that patient doesn't
show and then my rooms are messed up in terms of the rotation," says
Dr. Branham. "It makes the whole day go out of sequence."
Dr. Branham numbers the patients — the evens go in one room and
the odds in another — and then schedules the procedures based on
what the most efficient flip is
going to be. He schedules the
shorter cases with local anesthe-
sia for earlier in the day, the
longer, more difficult ones with
spinal blocks and implants for
later in the day.
Dr. Branham doesn't want to
keep the anesthesia team tied up
either, so he does locals on the
second, fourth and sixth cases in
OR 1. OR 2 hosts the first, third
and fifth cases that require an
anesthesia provider. That usually
works best in the mornings
because the quick local anesthesia
cases flip better, says Dr. Branham,
adding that he can cut the anesthe-
sia team loose a bit sooner.
3 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 8
"I never want to be the one who
gets told, 'I had my patient
under anesthesia for 10 minutes
before you even got here.'"
— Mark Topolski, MD,
Gundersen Health System
Gundersen
Health
System
