[Efficient use of the operating room]

To know whether the operating room is efficient requires continual evaluation of the equipment, the competency of personnel included and the level of complexity of the surgical procedures. This evaluation is in the institutional hospital center. The centers. The centers use them for internal control. However, they are slightly or not at all going in the productivity analysis of the operating room for decision making.

To identify the elements that favor suboptimal use of operating rooms and in each case, to propose solution for more efficient use.

Prospective, observational, transversal and comparative.

The study was carried out means of structured questionnaires with the times for surgical interventions in two operating rooms over sixty days. They were conducted the gynecology and general surgery areas. We compared real times against ideal times, and also the complexity levels.

Fisher's test p < 0.05 was considerate significant.

One hundred and twenty-five surgical procedure were performed, 57.6% during the morning shift (MS) and 42.2% during the evening shift (ES). A total of 66.4% corresponded to complexity level IIII, 84.8% were elective surgeries, 58.4% corresponded to general surgeries, and 41.6% to gynecologic surgical interventions. The delay in times entering the operating room was 20.5 min in MS compared to 4.3 min in ES p < 0.05. In more complex procedures, we found greater delay in surgical time.

The efficient use of the operating room depends on the complying of specific functions in the programmed time of the surgical equipment involved, systematic supervision, and the complexity level.