title: Surgical scheduling: a lean approach to process improvement.
abstract: A large teaching hospital in the northeast United States had an inefficient, paper-based process for scheduling orthopedic surgery that caused delays and contributed to site/side discrepancies. The hospital's leaders formed a team with the goals of developing a safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and accurate orthopedic scheduling process; smoothing the schedule so that block time was allocated more evenly; and ensuring correct site/side. Under the resulting process, real-time patient information is entered into a database during the patient's preoperative visit in the surgeon's office. The team found the new process reduced the occurrence of site/side discrepancies to zero, reduced instances of changing the sequence of orthopedic procedures by 70%, and increased patient satisfaction.
authors.forename: Ross William
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: Elena G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Canacari
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative
keywords: Lean; orthopedic surgery; scheduling