title: Weekend operating room on call staffing requirements.
abstract: This article describes a statistical method used to determine the minimum number of OR teams that should be on call for urgent procedures, in-house versus on standby from home, to minimize labor costs. The OR manager obtains the number of ORs staffed at each hour of the 24-hour period of interest (e.g., 7 AM Saturday to 7 AM Sunday) from the surgical suite's information system. The minimum number of total staffed hours needed to care for patients is calculated for a prespecified level of the acceptable risk of inadequate staffing. A method used to determine whether each staff member should work in-house or on standby from home then is introduced. This method enumerates all possible combinations of shifts to find the one with the lowest cost, and it ensures a prespecified service level. An example based on 248 weeks of data collected from a large surgical suite is presented, and staffing for emergency procedures is reviewed.
authors.affiliation: Division of Management Consulting, Department of Anesthesia, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dexter
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: O'Neill
mesh_terms: D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D004630:Emergencies; D006693:Holidays; D006801:Humans; D015146:Midwestern United States; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009719:Nurse Anesthetists / Q000458:organization & administration; D009871:Operating Room Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration; D009873:Operating Rooms; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000451:nursing*; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce