Analysis of factors affecting the productivity of operating room nurses during office hours at Suranaree University of Technology Hospital

Abstract

In 2020, the numbers of surgery-required patients and operating room nurses in office-hour periods at the operative unit of Suranaree University Hospital are continuously disproportionated. Such situation gradually reduces one of the key point indexes of the unit, operating room nurses’ productivity. Even though there were some efforts, e.g. staff and schedule management, to alleviate the problem, the productivity remains unchanged. Therefore, this study is initiated to find out what is the main influence of such reduction that the unit staff can make an improvement.

From March to July 2020, there were 1,674 operated patients’ data included in the study. The analyzed result indicates that the average productivity of operating room nurses is 55.95 percent per day, ranged from 10.0 to 88.3 percent. After comparing multiple factors and building a predictive model, the results demonstrate three main influencers-- number of practicing nurses, number of patients who receive operation per day and the departments of surgeons performing the surgery, which affect the productivity of 70 percent during office hours. These findings will be deployed as the guides for daily operating room nurses’ assignments and departments’ schedule adjustment. We believe that by applying this study’s decision tree, time and manpower management in our institute will be more efficient. 

References

C. McIntosh, F. Dexter, and R. Epstein, “The Impact of Service-Specific Staffing, Case Scheduling, Turnovers, and First-Case Starts on Anesthesia Group and Operating Room Productivity: A Tutorial Using Data from an Australian Hospital”, Anesthesia & Analgesia, vol. 103,Issue 6 ,p 1499-1516, December 201

M. Berry, T.Berry-Stölzle, and A. Schleppers, “Operating room management and operating room productivity: the case of Germany”. Health Care Manage Sci, vol. 11, p 228–239, 2008

J. Lehtonen, P. Torkki, A. Peltokorpi, and T. Moilanen, “Increasing operating room productivity by duration categories and a newsvendor model”, International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 80-92.

M. Charlesworth, and J. J. Pandit, “Rational performance metrics for operating theatres, principles of efficiency, and how to achieve it”. Br J Surg, vol. 107, e63-e69, 2020

A. Ramme, L.H. Hutzler, R. J. Cerfolio, and J. Bosco, “Applying systems engineering to increase operating room efficiency”, Bulletin of the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases; New York, vol. 78, iss. 1, p 26-32, 2020

Adan, J. Bekkers, N. Dellaert, J. Jeunet, and J. Vissers, “Improving operational effectiveness of tactical master plans for emergency and elective patients under stochastic demand and capacitated resources”, European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 213, iss. 1, 2011

J. Weiss, A. Elixhauser, and R. M. Andrews, ”Characteristics of operating room procedures in U.S. hospitals, 2011: statistical brief #170 , Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Statistical Briefs. February 2014

G. Arcidiacono, J. Wang, and K. Yang, "Operating room adjusted utilization study", International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, vol. 6, no. 2, p. 111-137. 2015

M. Bartek, R. Saxena, S. Solomon, C. Fong, L. Behara, R. Venigandla, K. Velagapudi, J. Lang, and B. Nair, “Improving operating room efficiency: machine learning approach to predict case-time duration”, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, vol. 229, iss. 4, p 346-354.e3, 2019

T. Madni, J. Imran, A. Clark, B. Arnoldo, H. Phelan, S. Wolf, “Analysis of operating room efficiency in a burn center”, Journal of Burn Care & Research, vol. 39, iss. 1, p.89-93, January/February 2018