title: Analysis of operating theatre utilisation to drive efficiency and productivity improvements.
abstract: There is an urgent need in the acute health system to use resources as efficiently as possible. One such group of resources are operating theatres, which have an important impact on patient flow through a hospital. Data-driven insights into the use of operating theatres can suggest improvements to minimise wastage and improve theatre availability. In this paper, a short extract of surgical data from participating Queensland public hospitals was statistically analysed to examine the effects of session type, session specialty, scheduling the longest case first and day of the week on theatre utilisation. It was found that day-long sessions (as opposed to separate morning or afternoon sessions), mid-week sessions, certain specialties (eg. neurosurgery sessions) and not doing the longest case first were most beneficial to theatre utilisation. Awareness of these findings is important in any redesign activity aimed at improving flow performance.
authors.affiliation: The CSIRO Australian E-Health Research Centre, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Hamish
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Thorburn
authors.affiliation: The CSIRO Australian E-Health Research Centre, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Sankalp
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khanna
authors.affiliation: The CSIRO Australian E-Health Research Centre, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Justin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Boyle
authors.affiliation: The CSIRO Australian E-Health Research Centre, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Norm
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Good
authors.affiliation: Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Queensland Health, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Steyn
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D057225:Data Mining; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009870:Operating Room Information Systems / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009873:Operating Rooms / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D061646:Operative Time; D011793:Queensland; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D014600:Utilization Review; D057188:Workflow; D016526:Workload / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*