title: Preoperative cross functional teams improve OR performance.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this paper is to present the effect of the introduction of cross-functional team (CFT)-based organization, rather than, on planning and performance of OR teams.
  
  
  METHODS
  In total, two surgical departments of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center (RUNMC) in the Netherlands were selected to illustrate the effect on performance. Data were available for a total of seven consecutive years from 2005 until 2012 and consisted of 4,046 OR days for surgical Department A and 1,154 OR days for surgical Department B on which, respectively 8,419 and 5,295 surgical cases were performed. The performance indicator "raw utilization" of the two surgical Departments was presented as box-and-whisker plots per year (2005-2011). The relationship between raw utilization (y) and years (x) was analyzed with linear regression analysis, to observe if performance changed over time.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Based on the linear regression analysis, raw utilization of surgical Department A showed a statistically significant increase since 2006. The variation in raw utilization reduced from IQR 33 percent in 2005 to IQR 8 percent in 2011. Surgical Department B showed that raw utilization increased since 2005. The variation in raw utilization reduced from IQR 21 percent in 2005 to IQR 8 percent in 2011.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Hospitals need to improve their productivity and efficiency in response to higher societal demands and rapidly escalating costs. The RUNMC increased their OR performance significantly by introduction of CFT-based organization in the operative process and abandoning the so called functional silos.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The stepwise reduction of variation - a decrease of IQR during the years - indicates an organizational learning effect. This study demonstrates that introducing CFTs improve OR performance by working together as a team.
authors.affiliation: OR Department, Bernhoven Hospital, Uden, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Justin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bitter
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Veen-Berkx
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: van Amelsvoort
authors.forename: Hein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gooszen
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D009426:Netherlands; D009873:Operating Rooms / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D057234:Preoperative Period; D011446:Prospective Studies; D058996:Quality Improvement
keywords: OR; Performance; Self-managing teams; Teamwork; The Netherlands