Operating Room On-Time Starts

Time is one of the most valuable commodities in the perioperative area. It is something that is almost impossible to place a dollar value to, yet so many people attempt to do this on a regular basis. The study being proposed is an on-going study regarding efficiency in the perioperative area and, more specifically, the Operating Room Suite. The environment being studied at present is a Level II trauma center, with academic/university affiliation.The presentation's main focus is on efficiency. The poster presentation would define lateness in regard to first-case starts. It would focus on explaining the importance of on-time starts in the Operating Room, as many do not understand the implications of starting a room/cases late. Late cases mean financial loss, as well as decreased patient, staff and surgeon satisfaction, amongst other negative implications.

In addition to simply explaining the issue at hand, late case starts, the presentation would present several ideas in workflow/process changes that, hopefully, will result in a greater number of on-time starts when implemented at the hospital of study. At minimum, the poster presentation would discuss 3-5 ideas for improving the workflow in the perioperative setting that would reduce the number of delays with first-case starts. At present, the presentation is currently a literature review, however, data collection on late versus on-time starts at the institution of study has been on-going for approximately 5 months. As such, at least one of the proposed workflow changes will be implemented at the institution of study, which could be spoken to at the time of the poster presentation if possible.

Perioperative workflow issues are not always mainstream within nursing academia. This presentation will draw light to an issue that effects the Operating Room, as well as other procedural units, and greatly effects the bottom line of the hospital. The Operating Room can either make or lose a considerable amount of money and this presentation seeks to understand and explain manners to make the area more efficient and, therefore, profitable.