Successful strategies for the reduction of operating room turnover times in a tertiary care academic medical center.

BACKGROUND: Turnover time (TOT) is one of the classic measures of operating room (OR) efficiency. There have been numerous efforts to reduce TOTs, sometimes through the employment of a process improvement framework. However, most examples of process improvement in the TOT focus primarily on operational changes to workflows and statistical significance. These examples of process improvement do not detail the complex organizational challenges associated with implementing, expanding, and sustaining change.
METHODS: TOT data for general and gastrointestinal surgery were collected retrospectively over a 26-mo period at a large multispecialty academic institution. We calculated mean and median TOTs. TOTs were excluded if the sequence of cases was changed or cases were canceled. Data were retrieved from the perioperative nursing data entry system.
RESULTS: Using performance improvement strategies, we determined how various events and organizational factors created an environment that was receptive to change. This ultimately led to a sustained decrease in the OR TOT both in the general and gastrointestinal surgery ORs that were the focus of the study (44.8 min versus 48.6 min; P < 0.0001) and other subspecialties (49.3 min versus 53.0 min; P < 0.0001), demonstrating that the effect traveled outside the study area.
CONCLUSIONS: There are obstacles, such as organizational culture and institutional inertia, that OR leaders, managers, and change agents commonly face. Awareness of the numerous variables that may support or impede a particular change effort can inform effective change implementation strategies that are "organizationally compatible."