Operating room adjusted utilization study
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify key factors that impact operating room (OR) utilization and evaluate different scenarios on OR performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Five months of data were collected. stepwise regression and best subset models were used to select factors and generate regression model for OR utilization. We further used simulation to test the influence of case duration mean, case duration variation, scheduled utilization and first-case delay on OR utilization, OR cost inefficiency and patient wait time on the day of surgery.
Findings
The scheduled utilization, case cancellation and add-on cases were the most important factors identified in all models. The larger the case duration variation, the lower the OR cost efficiency and utilization, the longer the patient wait time. First-case delay and turnover times are not critical in OR utilization or cost efficiency.
Practical implications
OR management should focus on creating an effective way to manage case cancellation and add-on policy to tackle the change on the day of surgery. In addition, several weeks before the surgery, the management needs to consider how to schedule cases to fit the allocated OR time.
Originality/value
In complementary of current OR management, this research assists OR management by identifying the factors that would result in the most significant improvement on OR utilization.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Luca Gentile and Luca Bucciarelli for the support and the proofreading of the paper.
Citation
Arcidiacono, G., Wang, J. and Yang, K. (2015), "Operating room adjusted utilization study", International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 111-137. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLSS-02-2014-0005
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited