The Effect of Scheduling on Operating Room Utilization at an Affiliated Hospital of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in Yazd

Abstract

Introduction: Resource management and efficiency analysis assist the hospitals in controlling the expenses and optimum utilization. Operating room (OR) is one of the most critical and expensive resources in a hospital. Operating room utilization is a measure calculated as a ratio between the available time and the used actual minutes. In the current study, we aimed to measure OR utilization in Yazd Shahid Sadoughi Hospital.

Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study in which all the surgeries performed in ORs of Shahid Sadoughi Hospital were investigated during a 15-day period. Data were collected from four randomly-selected rooms in the surgical unit in January 2013 using some pre-designed checklists.

Results: A total of 151 surgeries were conducted during a 53-day period in four ORs. We found that OR utilization was 68% for the Orthopedics, 61% for the Ophthalmology, 89% for the General Surgery, and 86% for the ear, nose and throat (ENT) ORs. Total adjusted utilization was 77% and raw utilization rate was 70%. Of the 19080 minutes dedicated for surgeries, 13400 minutes were spent on surgeries and 1215 minutes were used for the turn-over-time or the delay between two surgeries. Of 53 days, the ORs were used efficiently for 7 days, under-utilized for 27 days, and over-utilizedfor 19 days.

Conclusion: Data analysis showed that the Orthopedics and Ophthalmology ORs were under-utilized; whereas, the General Surgery room was over-utilized. The ENT utilization was in an appropriate range. The lowest utilization rate in a day was recorded for the Orthopedics OR (17%), while the highest rate was 158% for ENT. Further studies are recommended to measure OR utilization in a longer period of time and use the research findings to have accurate  scheduling for the ORs leading to their efficiency improvement.