Operating room adjusted utilization study

Purpose – This paper aims to identify key factors that impact operating room (OR) utilization and evaluate different scenarios on OR performance. Design/methodology/approach – Five months of data were collected. stepwise regression and best subset models were used to select factors and generate regression model for OR utilization. We further used simulation to test the influence of case duration mean, case duration variation, scheduled utilization and first-case delay on OR utilization, OR cost inefficiency and patient wait time on the day of surgery. Findings – The scheduled utilization, case cancellation and add-on cases were the most important factors identified in all models. The larger the case duration variation, the lower the OR cost efficiency and utilization, the longer the patient wait time. First-case delay and turnover times are not critical in OR utilization or cost efficiency. Practical implications – OR management should focus on creating an effective way to manage case cancellation and add-on policy to tackle the change on the day of surgery. In addition, several weeks before the surgery, the management needs to consider how to schedule cases to fit the allocated OR time. Originality/value – In complementary of current OR management, this research assists OR management by identifying the factors that would result in the most significant improvement on OR utilization.