Evaluation of operating room inefficiencies and their impact on operating room duration using a surgical app

Dimitrios I Athanasiadis; Sara Monfared; Lava Timsina; Jake Whiteside; Ambar Banerjee; Annabelle Butler; Dimitrios Stefanidis

doi:10.1016/j.amjsurg.2024.04.022

Evaluation of operating room inefficiencies and their impact on operating room duration using a surgical app

Am J Surg. 2024 Apr 24:S0002-9610(24)00239-3. doi: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2024.04.022. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Dimitrios I Athanasiadis¹, Sara Monfared¹, Lava Timsina¹, Jake Whiteside², Ambar Banerjee¹, Annabelle Butler¹, Dimitrios Stefanidis³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
² Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
³ Department of Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA. Electronic address: dimstefa@iu.edu.

PMID: 38679510
DOI: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2024.04.022

Abstract

Background: Efficient utilization of the operating room (OR) is essential. Inefficiencies are thought to cause preventable delays. Our goal was to identify OR incidents causing delays and estimate their impact on the duration of various general surgery procedures.

Materials: Three trained observers prospectively collected intraoperative data using the ExplORer Surgical app, a tool that helped capture incidents causing delays. The impact of each incident on case duration was assessed using multivariable analysis.

Results: 151 general surgery procedures were observed. The mean number of incidents was 2.7 per each case that averaged 109min. On average, each incident caused a 2.8 min delay (p < 0.001), however, some incidents were associated with longer delays. The procedural step of each procedure most susceptible to incidents was also defined.

Conclusion: The identification of the type of incidents and the procedural step during which they occur may allow targeted interventions to optimize OR efficiency and decrease operative time.

Keywords: Inefficiency; Intraoperative incidents; OR efficiency.