Preoperative Management Issues
Waiting time and operating room scheduling are the two key preoperative determinates.
Waiting time prior to operation The time from surgical scheduling to check-in for the procedure is defined, for these purposes, as “preoperative wait time.”
Use of a surgical suite depends greatly on, and increases as, the average length of time patients wait for surgery increases. As waiting time increases, more surgical dates (blocks) can be evaluated for a good match between a case's duration and the open times in the blocks. In some communities, competition among surgeons and hospitals may not allow the average length of time that patients have to wait for surgery to be as long as 2 weeks. An OR suite then cannot expect block time utilization from elective cases to exceed 90%, assuming that enough block time is allocated for a surgeon to complete all of the elective cases in the block time.
For these purposes, wait time can be equated to the price of an object. The price for an object increases if demand increases and/or supply reduces for that object. Hence, “preoperative wait time” will increase as demand for surgery increases and/or surgical supply (operating room availability) reduces or fails to grow proportionally to surgical demand.
By accurately gauging a patient population and an operative facility’s capacity, an effective manager can minimize the wait for elective and imminent procedures while covering all emergency cases and without overextending the operative team.
Read more about this topic: Operating Room Management
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