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Improving theatre efficiency and utilisation through early identification of trauma patients and enhanced communication between teams.

ABSTRACT: Surgical departments are increasingly put under pressure to improve services, cut waiting lists, increase efficiency and save money. At a district general hospital in the west-midlands we approached the challenge of improving efficiency and optimising the services available in our orthopaedic theatres. Data was collected on: anaesthetic start times, operation start and finish times, and reasons for delay in our trauma theatre over a period from October 2014 to January 2015. During this period a change was implemented to improve the start time of the first operation of each day in the trauma theatre. Through adaptation of a method developed by Javed S et al, a patient was pre-selected by the on-call team and given the name the "golden patient" the day before they were due to be operated upon. This nominated patient would then be fixed at the start of the trauma theatre list the following day. The list would only then change if a "life or limb threatening" case was admitted overnight. The on-call team would prioritise that this patient was optimised for theatre and the theatre staff would ensure the surgical instruments were prepared. A PDSA cycle method was used, collecting data on 80 orthopaedic trauma cases during the period, and demonstrated a 59 minute (95% CI 45-72) improvement in start times from 10:49 AM to 9:50 AM with a p-value of 0.00024 with the intervention of early allocation of the first patient on the trauma list. A relatively simple intervention tool designed to improve communication within and between health-care teams can have a significant impact on the efficiency of a complex environment such as a trauma theatre.

SUBMITTER: Roberts S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4645853 | biostudies-other | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Improving theatre efficiency and utilisation through early identification of trauma patients and enhanced communication between teams.

Roberts Simon S Saithna Adnan A Bethune Rob R

BMJ quality improvement reports 20150227 1

Surgical departments are increasingly put under pressure to improve services, cut waiting lists, increase efficiency and save money. At a district general hospital in the west-midlands we approached the challenge of improving efficiency and optimising the services available in our orthopaedic theatres. Data was collected on: anaesthetic start times, operation start and finish times, and reasons for delay in our trauma theatre over a period from October 2014 to January 2015. During this period a ...[more]

PMID: 26734340

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Project description:Introduction"Lean" is a set of management principles which focus on increasing value and efficiency by reducing or avoiding waste (e.g., overproduction, defects, inventory, transportation, waiting, motion, over processing). It has been applied to manufacturing, education, and health care, leading to optimized process flow, increased efficiency and increased team empowerment. However, to date, it has not been applied to neuroimaging research.MethodsLean principles, such as Value stream mapping (e.g. a tool with which steps in the workflow can be identified on which to focus improvement efforts), 5S (e.g. an organizational method to boost workplace efficiency and efficacy) and Root-cause analysis (e.g. a problem-solving approach to identify key points of failure in a system) were applied to an ongoing, large neuroimaging study that included seven research visits per participant. All team members participated in a half-day exercise in which the entire project flow was visualized and areas of inefficiency were identified. Changes focused on removing obstacles, standardization, optimal arrangement of equipment and root-cause-analysis. A process for continuous improvement was also implemented. Total time of an experiment was recorded before implementation of Lean for two participants and after implementation of Lean for two participants. Satisfaction of team members was assessed anonymously on a 5-item Likert scale, ranging from much worsened to much improved.ResultsAll team members (N = 6) considered the overall experience of conducting an experiment much improved after implementation of Lean. Five out of six team members indicated a much-improved reduction in time, with the final team member considering this somewhat improved. Average experiment time was reduced by 13% after implementation of Lean (from 142 and 147 minutes to 124 and 128 minutes).DiscussionLean principles can be successfully applied to neuroimaging research. Training in Lean principles for junior research scientists is recommended.

Dataset Information

Improving theatre efficiency and utilisation through early identification of trauma patients and enhanced communication between teams.

Publications

Improving theatre efficiency and utilisation through early identification of trauma patients and enhanced communication between teams.

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