Operating room utilization

Excerpt

David Rattner in his Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) presidential address (Surg Endosc 2006;20:1802–1808) comments on operating room (OR) utilization. His study rightly identifies non-surgical factors as a major reason for slow OR throughput. The relatively poor OR utilization in the United States (103 min per laparoscopic cholecystectomy) has been a puzzle to those of us who work overseas. Prompted by conversations with surgeons on both the east and west coasts of the United States, I attach a UK model for theater usage. Our model relies heavily on close teamworking by surgeon, anesthesiologist and OR nurses. It also depends upon the correct “architectural” arrangement of rooms to allow rapid throughput of patients. …