Outpatient Surgery Magazine

OR Excellence Awards 2016 - September 2016 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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thesia providers getting caught up caring for a patient in another OR, we staggered our first-case start times. Surgery is scheduled to start at 7:15 a.m. in 4 ORs and at 7:30 a.m. in the 17 other rooms. This tweak lets our anesthesia providers focus on getting patients ready for earli- er starts in a few dedicated rooms and frees them up to move to the other ORs when they're finished. We also implemented the "10-minute rule," which requires all mem- bers of the surgical team to meet at the patient's bedside in pre-op 10 minutes before the scheduled start time. During the handoff, the OR team discusses the patient's clinical status and care needs with the pre-op staff, as is typically done. If the case won't start on time, staff agree on the reason for the delay, which the circulating nurse notes on the communication tool and enters into the patient's electronic medical record. The 10-minute rule increases the likelihood that sur- geries will begin on time, because all of the important stakeholders are required to be present and accountable before the scheduled start time. It also lets us capture accurate delay data that we can use to change our processes or address specific issues. Proven results In 2013, 40% of our first cases were delayed an average of 9 minutes. If each OR minute costs $62, those delays cost our organization nearly $1 million. The 10-minute rule lowered our late-start percentage to 30% and the average delay to 8 minutes. That 10% decrease in delays equates to annual savings of about $100,000 based on the cost of an OR minute. A late first-case start can delay the rest of the day's cases. That might cause surgical team members to feel rushed and pressured into taking shortcuts to make up time. Staff may also feel that delays con- Staffing S 3 2 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6

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