Operation room management in Korea: results of a survey

The current state of general hospital operation room (OR) in Korea and how these ORs are being operated remain unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate and assess the current state of OR management and surgical scheduling in general hospitals of Korea.

A total of 92 anesthesiology training hospitals and 2 equivalent hospitals in Korea were targeted for the survey. Anesthesiologists in hospitals received questionnaires for OR, anesthetic managements and surgical scheduling directly or by phone from the beginning of October 2015 to the end of December 2015.

Of the 94 hospitals that were targeted, 59 hospitals (62.7%) responded to the survey. Of the 59 hospitals, 40 (67.8%) had 500-1,000 beds, 36 (61.0%) had 11-20 ORs. Most OR arrangements were made by residents and specialists in Anesthesiology Department (90%). Most hospitals (47.4%) in the response set performed total surgeries in the range of 10,000 to 20,000 annually. The proportion of emergency surgeries in the total surgeries was 2.8-55.0%. Methods for predicting expected surgery time were arbitrarily decided by surgeons (61%), anesthesiologist's experience (20%), or by analyzing historical data using software (5%).

This survey study could trigger active operational researches for OR efficiency. It might help hospital policy makers manage OR resources more efficiently.