Analysis of Operating Room Efficiency in a Burn Center

Many operating room (OR) processes can limit productivity. Surprisingly, little has been done to identify which OR processes limit downstream activities. Here, the authors aimed to review their burn OR procedures to determine if and where inefficiencies exist. Data for all operations performed in a dedicated burn OR from January 1, 2015, to July 31, 2016 were reviewed in the electronic medical records of our public, teaching hospital. The total time spent was allocated into the following components: induction (patient in room to end of induction), preparation (end of induction to procedure start), procedure (procedure start to procedure end), exit (procedure end to patient out of room), and turnover (patient out of room to next patient in room). Operative times and work relative value units generated were summarized. A total of 1033 cases were performed. Mean ± SD times for each component in minutes were induction (12.4 ± 7.4), preparation (32.1 ± 15.4), procedure (68.21 ± 42.0), exit (14.7 ± 11.0), turnover (50.5 ± 30.0), and total aggregation of components (155.8 ± 65.4). Procedure, turnover, and preparation were the 3 largest time components of an operation in decreasing order (39, 29, and 18%). Mean work relative value units per month was 1749.4 ± 411.9. Average work relative value units per OR hour was 11.7 ± 8.5. The time spent doing procedures comprises about 40% of the total operational time in a burn OR. Other than the procedure itself, the second and third largest component of an operation were turnover and preparation time, respectively.