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Learning Objective 1: The Learners will be able to learn the guidelines for Emergnecy cases classification in Operating Room on basis of its severity.
Learning Objective 2: The Learners will be able to diffrentiate between emergency, semi-emergency and elective add-on cases on with the help of color codes.
Background:
In an eleven operating room (OR) setting having block scheduling system only one OR is designated for emergency cases. Registration of emergent, urgent and semi-urgent cases was all classified as red emergency. If a red case is booked OR is kept empty whether the case arrives within one hour or more. As a result of this quality circle defined guidelines for proper classification of emergency cases under the umbrella of color codes were developed.
Method:
A Juran’s Continuous Quality Improvement project was done to review the previous system of emergency case classification. Data from November 2009 to January 2010 revealed that 59.98% cases took more than one hour to arrive into OR. The multidisciplinary team formulated a new guideline for prioritization of emergency cases on its nature of emergency by giving color codes as below:
- Red as the emergent case to operate within 45 minutes of booking.
- Orange as urgent case to operate within 6 hours.
- Blue as semi-urgent case to operate in next 24 hours.
Results:
After the implementation of new guidelines the previous 100% red cases till February 2010 were now divided into groups of red, orange and blue as 48.8%, 43.69% and 6.64% respectively from March to May 2010. This all has contributed in increasing patient satisfaction and decreased patient’s NPO time.
Conclusion:
This strategy of classification of emergency cases is a useful tool in running an emergency OR where prioritization of cases is a challenge and influx of emergency cases is very high.
Acknowledgement:
On World Quality Day celeberation 2010, this quality circle was presented and rewarded as first prize in the competition.