Are your hospitals leveraging one of your most valuable assets: OR time?

In spite of economically challenging times it is possible – and even essential – to transform troubled operating rooms into optimally performing departments.

Where do you start the transformation?

Start by changing the way the OR has historically been run.  In most hospitals, the OR has historically been run by nursing which has put the nursing leadership in the awkward position of trying to control physician behavior only to be “undermined” by administration who is put in the awkward position of going up against a surgeon who is threatening to take valuable cases elsewhere. By changing the “governance” from the old model to a more collaborative model, hospital administration, surgeons, anesthesiologists and OR leadership are able to work together to assess the OR utilization and performance and begin to tackle some tough issues such as access to the OR and disruptive physician behavior. Sometimes takes an outside “force” to get all these factions to meet and begin to move in the same direction, but once you do… it will completely transform the OR and have a direct and positive impact on the hospital’s bottom line. Some key points for implementing a successful transformation are:

• Engage the physicians – both surgeons and anesthesiologists
• Create a collaborative OR governance model
• Establish physician leaders (Medical Directions) in the ORs to co-lead the ORs with the Nursing Directors on a daily basis
• Mentor OR Nursing Leadership on new model of shared-governance
• Communicate with staff, physicians, physician’s offices and other hospital departments

What can you accomplish?

• Revised block schedules that allow for greater operating room utilization and access
• Metrics for monitoring the operating room performance, individual surgeon performance and anesthesia performance
• Rapid process/efficiency improvement projects with accountably to the new governance board
• Transformed OR culture

The results?

• Increased OR volume
• Increased hospital revenue and profit (more profit = more money for the mission)
• Increased surgeon, anesthesia and nursing satisfaction

We want you to share your experience with us…

Do you have a collaborative governance model for the OR?

For more information, or to discuss your concerns with us directly please visit our website www.surgicaldirections.com.