Operating Room Management - The Necessity of Management

The Necessity of Management

Overhead costs include, but are not limited to, the space, technology and devices, pharmaceuticals and staffing. Hospital administrators have consequently focused their attention towards maximizing OR profitability, and thereby hospital profitability, through contribution margins. This focus, in addition to the boom in demand for elective surgery, has led to a rapid growth of OR facilities. Historically, nurses have been chiefly responsible for the daily functioning of the surgical suite. Increasingly, facilities are hiring a physician medical director for the OR, as represented by a surgeon, anesthesiologist, or both. In some instances, all three branches of surgery, anesthesia, and nursing will be represented in the daily OR management infrastructure. By working collegially, these three fields can mobilize all resources necessary to maximize OR productivity. Because medical needs and regulatory requirements are constantly changing, the concept of appointing a medical director in the OR, an operating room manager, has gained acceptance.

Clinicians typically focus on operational decisions on the day of surgery (short term) such as moving cases from one OR to another, assigning and relieving staff, prioritizing urgent cases, and scheduling add-on case. On the other hand, upper management typically focuses on strategic decision making (long term) such as whether to open a new cancer center, or whether to align the hospital with a regional health care system.