2023 OR Management Summit

7:15am – 8:00am

Conference Registration & Networking Breakfast

8:00am – 8:15am

Chairperson’s Opening Remarks

8:15am – 9:00am
Digital Healthcare Transformation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

New technologies are emerging under the umbrella of digital transformation in healthcare such as artificial intelligence (AI) and medical analytics to provide insights beyond the abilities of human experts. Because AI is increasingly used to support doctors in decision-making, risk assessment, and pattern recognition, it will most likely transform healthcare services and the way doctors deliver those services. This session will explore how integrating data from multiple sources and incorporating a range of tools, operating rooms will be a key platform for digitally enabled healthcare.

9:00am – 9:45am

Key Metrics to Improve OR Utilization

When it comes to making lasting improvements in OR utilization, are you where you want to be? Operating rooms are the proverbial heart of a hospital. Flow of patients through the OR impacts all departments from the ED or ICU and beyond. Surgeries are a major event in the life of patients and their families and their experience in the OR a major driver of patient satisfaction. Financially, ORs account for 40-70% of revenue for a typical hospital. They also represent a significant amount of investment as well as operating cost. A well-managed OR can make all the difference in financial stability of the organization. This is why there is such an emphasis on running an efficient operating room at most hospitals. But what operating room efficiency metrics should you look at? How can OR leaders measure these metrics? What benchmarks can be used to see how an organization is doing? This session will explore how data analytics can be used to improve the metrics that drive your success in the OR, including:

• OR utilization and scheduling accuracy
• Pre-admission testing and case cancellations
• Case start timeliness
• Staffing

9:45am – 10:15am

Networking & Refreshments Break

10:15am – 11:00am

Improving Patient Satisfaction in the OR

The number of surgeries in the U.S. on an annual basis is staggering. For the hospital provider, the sheer volume provides incredible opportunities for healthcare professionals to study and improve upon patterns and policies concerning patient satisfaction in the OR. Delivering patient-centered care in the OR, for example, is an intrinsic element of a quality healthcare system and important for hospital profitability. And one that can help a patient reduce his or her stress stemming from the potential risk of surgery. Many surgeries carry inherently high risk of negative outcomes, and it is reasonable to believe that the accompanying stress level and apprehension the patient and his or her family experience are proportional. This session will explore ways to improve patient satisfaction in the OR.

11:00am – 11:45am

Operational and Strategic Decision Making in the Perioperative Setting

For optimal OR productivity, a surgical suite needs to define its main stakeholders, identify and create strategies to meet their needs, and ensure staff and patient satisfaction.

Efficient OR management is a constant balancing act between optimal OR capacity, allocation of ORs to surgeons, assignment of staff, ordering of materials, and reliable scheduling, while according the highest priority to patient safety. This session will provide an overview of common concepts in OR management, specifically addressing the areas of strategic, tactical, and operational decision making, and parameters to measure OR efficiency.

11:45am – 12:30pm

Improving OR Patient Flow

OR performance has become a priority as surgical services represent an increasingly important revenue source for hospitals. Historically, surgical patient throughput was monitored with top-level metrics like “OR in to OR out” times via an operating room information system. But this high-level view doesn’t reveal why a procedure was delayed – only that a problem occurred. While OR processes appear to be highly standardized, the truth is that even the strictest protocols leave room for variation. Due to the complexity, it is difficult to accurately track and pinpoint the root cause of delays and bottlenecks in patient throughput and capacity management. In this session learn how using real-time data can improve OR patient flow and define goals to improve OR performance, improve processes, reach daily KPIs, enhance communication, and deliver real-time information to staff, as well as to waiting family members.

12:30pm – 1:30pm

Lunch Break

1:30pm – 2:15pm

Operating Room Time Management Strategies

Many hospitals still face subpar room and block scheduling averages, despite turning over the great majority of their OR schedules to allocated blocks. This is because it’s inherently complex to manage the block schedule in what can be a power struggle between organizational and operational priorities. Without consistent OR management, the block schedule calcifies over time, creating a cycle of underutilization that lowers revenues, increases operating costs, decreases margins, risks case leakage, and creates dissatisfaction among stakeholders. This session will explore strategies to improve OR management and OR scheduling procedures.

2:15pm – 3:15pm

Managing Complexity in the Operating Room

Clinical work in the OR is considered challenging as it is complex, dynamic and often time- and resource-constrained. Important characteristics for successful management of complexity include adaptations and adaptive coordination when managing expected and unexpected events. This session will explore what makes things go well and how to best respond to challenges and compensate for constraints. We’ll dive into how complexity is best managed by operating room nurses, registered nurse anesthetists, and surgeons, and how these professionals adapt to create safe care in the OR.

3:15pm – 3:45pm

Networking & Refreshments Break

3:45pm – 4:30pm

Ensuring Patient Safety in the Surgical Environment

Prevention of surgical errors requires the attention of all personnel involved in the patient’s care. Ensuring patient safety in the OR begins before the patient enters the operative suite and includes attention to all applicable types of preventable medical errors. This session will explore steps to prevent wrong-site, wrong-person, wrong-procedure errors, or retained foreign objects, starting with structured communication between the patient, the surgeon(s), and other members of the healthcare team.

4:30pm – 5:15pm

Strategies to Improve OR Turnover

This session will explore strategies for improving OR turnover including efficient time, environmental risks and the impact of cross-contamination. The presentation will include a review of current data related to OR turnover practices and discuss recommendations for the use of disposable patient-care equipment for preventing transmission of infectious agents during room turnover.

5:15pm

End of Day One

7:15am – 8:00am

Networking Breakfast

8:00am – 8:15am

Chairperson’s Recap

8:15am – 9:00am

Optimizing the Operating Room

Caring for patients in traditionally designed, large hospitals is often frustrating. Attempts at decreasing internal costs and inpatient length of stay are universally undertaken in order to address dwindling reimbursement, and patient care becomes more specialized and fractionated. These attempts have proven to be myopic, at best, and injurious to patient care and professional job satisfaction, at worst. This session will examine operational processes of the operating room as well as suggestions for operational improvements to optimize patients, to enhance satisfaction, efficiency and outcomes, all of which can be applied to all hospitals.

9:00am – 9:45am

Maximizing Efficiency, Turnaround Time and Scheduling in the Operating Room

Operating rooms in the U.S. generally account for over 60 percent of the hospital’s total revenue. Misjudging the amount of revenue ORs account for is a common mistake among many hospital executives. The revenue is overlooked due to the focus on the cost created by the surgery department, causing most hospital executives to cut surgery department costs. Cutting the costs minimizes resources and supplies available within the department, contributing to the department’s already existing inefficiencies and complexities. This session will explore how improving these inefficiencies will allow the hospital to work towards achieving improved patient satisfaction, improved worker satisfaction, maximize revenue, and minimize cost.

9:45am – 10:15am

Networking & Refreshments Break

10:15am – 11:00am

How to Reduce Operating Room Waste

While ORs generate the highest revenue, these are also where most waste and supply costs come from. About 20 to 30 percent of hospital waste comes directly from the OR. Waste materials vary and are comparable to what’s disposed by different industries. Apart from surgical waste, disposal is needed for facility operations-related waste, office disposables and food or drink items; but these are not easily thrown away, like waste products found in dumpsters or landfills. There are laws in place, at the state and federal levels, when it comes to medical waste disposal. These cost 10 or 15 times more than the usual waste disposal processes. Apart from the financial aspect, medical and environmental concerns needs to be addressed. There is risk for infection and contamination when blood, fluids, clothing and materials used in ORs are not properly disposed. This session will examine the benefits of reducing waste in the OR.

11:00am – 11:45am

Innovative Approaches to Address Critical Staffing challenges in ORs

Surgical case volume fluctuations due to inpatient capacity constraints have left perioperative departments facing growing backlogs and critical staffing and resource shortages. This session will explore how hospitals can better navigate this environment, and match OR supply and demand. Learn strategies for managing OR backlogs, mitigating staffing and resource constraints, and optimizing capacity despite an unpredictable environment.

11:45am – 12:30pm

Artificial Intelligence in the Operating Room

The use of artificial intelligence in conventional operating rooms will help hospitals address inefficiencies and clinical challenges physicians face when performing surgery. Some of these solutions can help determine the risk of complications even before a patient is wheeled into the operating room so that doctors can pre-empt those, and ensure smoother surgeries, and faster recovery. Having an AI solution supporting surgeons only enhances their skill set further, meaning patients have improved outcomes. Benefits such as fewer complications, re-admissions, or need for corrective surgeries and earlier recoveries also mean healthcare costs go down. This session will examine how all this, in effect, helps achieve the quadruple aim of healthcare: enhanced patient experience, increased provider satisfaction, improved outcomes, and lower costs.

12:30pm

Conference Concludes

12:45pm – 2:45pm

Workshop

Using Lean Six Sigma to Redesign the Supply Chain to the Operating Room Department 

Continuity of the supply chain is an integral element in the safe and timely delivery of healthcare services. Lean Six Sigma (LSS), a continuous improvement approach, aims to drive efficiencies and standardization in processes, and while well established in the manufacturing and supply chain industries, also has relevance in healthcare supply chain management. This session will explore the application of LSS tools and techniques within the supply chain of an OR setting.