This article originally by Jo Quetsch, MA, RN on OR Manager. As COVID-19 cases escalate nationwide, health systems across the country are determining policies and procedures related to their resources, staffing, scheduling and more to prepare for anticipated patient surges.…
Watching the tennis matches at Wimbledon over the last couple of weeks has inspired me to try and play a bit more often in order to improve my erratic, “weekend-warrior” level of play. The challenge is in reserving a tennis…
The notion of improving operational efficiency is conspicuously absent from the healthcare debate — neither Obamacare nor the newly proposed GOP plan discusses the impact that a step-function improvement in efficiency could have on access to healthcare (through more capacity),…
As a perioperative business manager for over a decade, I’ve seen dozens of approaches and projects to improve operating room efficiency. No matter how you calculate your operating room utilization, if it’s less than 80% there’s room for improvement. Even…
A recent RNnetwork survey found half of the nurses they surveyed (49.8 percent) have contemplated switching professions, with 27 percent citing overwork as the reason. In his analysis of this data (as reported by Kelly Gooch on Becker’s Hospital Review),…
Excellent service processes are fast processes — this is the universal truth of service operations. Just as the water level in the bay hides the rocks from visibility, high levels of inventory mask underlying problems in manufacturing or logistics. Extending…
Among today’s biggest trends are EHRs and business intelligence. We’re investing millions of dollars creating “data engines” that track patients throughout the continuum of care. In many ways it’s similar to the internet in its infancy — we’re building a…
Hat tip to Sharon O’Keefe, CEO of the University of Chicago Medical Center, for introducing the phrase “make your assets sweat” to our team, which inspired me to write this article. The Affordable Care Act, increased government regulations and rising healthcare…
One minute of utilized operating room (OR) time can be worth more than $70 in revenue and one minute of staffed OR time can cost $50 or more, making underutilized OR time a huge problem. Each year, roughly 51 million…
Most large, complex health systems rely on block schedules for managing the complexity of operating room utilization. The concept has a visceral appeal to it — give the surgeon or the service line a full-day or a half-day block, and…
