Operating Rooms are a bottleneck for nearly all hospitals. A more efficiently run OR means patients get faster and better treatment. One of our clients, Nij Smellinge Hospital, had limited OR capacity and long waiting lists. Management wanted to gain control over each specialist department’s OR production and link this to the budget. ZVE manager Edwin Frenay van ‘t Veen asked Turner for help with this Health Intelligence problem.
In response, we drew up a smart OR plan in cooperation with OR management and all medical specialists involved. This provided a clear picture of waiting lists, utilization and budget, enabling the hospital to steer production.
“Now we can make more rational decisions on OR planning and capacity, jointly with the medical specialists,” said Edwin Frenay van ‘t Veen. “We’ve also gotten a clearer view of the waiting lists, patients’ background, and how this relates to the production budget.””
Working together, Turner and the hospital took on the OR planning bottlenecks. We devised an OR master plan that provided even more insight and measurable results. The master plan factors in waiting lists, available budget, utilization and staffing.
Based on the new plan, we created an OR schedule that allows different specialists to use the OR more flexibly. This schedule also dovetails better with projected staffing levels, based on prospective analyses.
To solidify the new way of working, we introduced Tactical Planning Meetings. These regular meetings between OR management and medical specialists deals with relevant factors in the new schedule.
We wrapped up by ensuring the constant availability of relevant data to OR managers and doctors. To learn how to get the most out of the data, we held in-depth sessions with the medical departments. The goal was to give these departments a fuller understanding and greater control of all factors that determine the production level. This applies to more than the OR, and includes decisions on portfolio, treatment necessity, the geographical area served by the hospital, budget limits, operating times and integration of capacity across departments.
