Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Save Lives And Sanitize: Prevention Of Surgical Site Infections Post-Cesarean Section Through Increased Hand Hygiene Compliance, Lindsay N. Nance

Master's Projects and Capstones

Problem: Surgical site infections (SSIs) occur in 3-15% of cesarean sections, making SSIs one of the most common hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). Surgical site infections (SSIs) have increased within a Labor & Delivery (L&D) unit in a large California teaching hospital for the past three years, affecting reimbursement and creating a range of adverse outcomes for patients. Performance of consistent and thorough hand hygiene practices is key to preventing infection, yet the unit’s hand hygiene compliance of 66.7% is well below the facility’s target goal of 90%. Based on recommendations from the organization’s Infection Prevention & Control (IPC) specialist, the …

Improving First Case Starts For A Neurosurgery Or, Tara L. Goodall

Master's Projects and Capstones

Problem: On-time first cases for operating rooms (OR) is a worldwide focus for improvement. OR delays have many adverse effects, including economic costs and patient and facility staff satisfaction.

Context: The site for this improvement project is a medium-sized hospital in Northern California. There are 12 ORs, with an average of 600-700 cases. Neurosurgery was the chosen specialty due to low on-time starts and long delay minutes. The focus was working with one OR to improve first case on-time starts by 20%.

Interventions: A worksheet was created to track room setup, delay reasons, and delay minutes. A visual setup guide …

Reducing Turnover Time To Improve Efficiency In The Operating Room, Myrna Jafari

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to improve efficiency by reducing turnover time in the operating room (OR) that can consequently enhance patients’ and physicians’ satisfaction, promote teamwork, and decrease the cost of operating room delays. The increasing trend of turnover time (TOT) requires attention for microsystem improvement in the OR of Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. The intervention to improve efficiency is to educate the OR team members on roles and responsibilities to establish a standard workflow which can promote accountability and teamwork during the turnover process. Havelock’s theory of change is used as a framework for the action …

Reducing Operating Room Turnover Times, Marivic Z. Paraz-Lee

Master's Projects and Capstones

Background

The operating room (OR) in an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) is what generates income for an organization, but it can also be costly if it’s improperly managed. The purpose of this project is to decrease OR turnover time (TOT) in order to increase OR efficiency, patient and staff satisfaction, as well as be cost effective. As defined by Gottschalk et al. (2016), OR turnover time is “the duration of time from a patient exiting the OR to the time the succeeding patient enters the OR” (p. 489).

Methods

The method utilized for this project is gathering weekly average TOT …

Performing A Correct Surgical Time Out, Natalia E. Mariscal

Master's Projects and Capstones

The ending data reflected what we expected in that we would see a significant incline but

not quite the 100% compliance rate we are looking for. Our highest compliance rate has reached

90% and we have contributed the margin error to new staff that requires the proper teaching and

education. In conclusion I feel that the majority of staff was aware that they were not in

compliance with the time out but would proceed anyways due to the rush of the case or surgeon

or simply that they had become laxed in practice. Once the data was brought to staff …