Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Collaborative Strategies To Reduce Incomplete Operating Room Instruments Trays, Richard Neusch, Nicole Wagner, Colby Fike, Suneela Nayak

Operational Transformation

In an academic tertiary medical care center, the OR was receiving incomplete instrument trays. This issue became increasingly problematic in wasted staff time and cost to the institution.

Using a tracking system to generate a missing instrument report, baseline metrics were established. Reviewing each report, an interdepartmental team comprised of members of the OR and sterile processing departments, initiated a number of countermeasures.

Since the start of these countermeasures, there has been a reduction in the receipt of incomplete OR trays. Next steps include creating a tag process by which the OR instrument trays from one case would be kept …

Increasing First Case On Time Starts In An Ambulatory Surgery Center, Diane Fecteau, Shannan Reid, Sydney Green, Ruth Hanselman, Suneela Nayak, Stephen Tyzik, Amy Sparks

Operational Transformation

In an ambulatory surgical center, first case on-time starts directly affects the patient experience. In addition, in order to treat as many patients as possible, delays of first case on-time starts negatively impacts the rest of scheduled surgical patients and increases staff overtime expenditures. An ambulatory surgical team within a large urban health care system initiated a performance improvement initiative to enhance the patient experience, increase staff accountability and care team well-being.

The goal of this project was to start 70% or more first cases on time. Baseline metrics demonstrated that patients and surgeons were the largest cause of delay. …