Reducing Operating Room Turnover Times

Background The operating room (OR) in an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) is what generates income for an organization, but it can also be costly if it’s improperly managed. The purpose of this project is to decrease OR turnover time (TOT) in order to increase OR efficiency, patient and staff satisfaction, as well as be cost effective. As defined by Gottschalk et al. (2016), OR turnover time is “the duration of time from a patient exiting the OR to the time the succeeding patient enters the OR” (p. 489). Methods The method utilized for this project is gathering weekly average TOT data from the last quarter of 2016 utilizing the HST clinical reporting system and comparing it to TOT gathered for the second quarter of 2017. Any potential outliers such as a same-day surgery cancellation or atypical cases that require longer surgical time are not included. The aim for the project is to decrease TOT by 5-10% by the end of July 2017. Results Due to an unforeseen acquisition of the ASC by another company and preparation for an upcoming state survey, the implementation phase of the project has been delayed in order to focus on survey preparation. The project will resume its scheduled activities once management approval is received