Sharing the Operating Room: A Descriptive Study of Combined and Collaborative Plastic Surgery Cases

Plastic surgeons are often asked for intraoperative assistance by other surgical services. Improvement of a plastic surgery service has been shown to improve patient outcomes, decrease length of stay, and increase hospital revenue, yet plastic surgery's contribution to a hospital tends to be undervalued. The purpose of this study was to quantify the multidisciplinary role the plastic surgery service plays within a single, large pediatric institution.

Surgical cases involving both plastic surgery and at least one other team were identified from 2016 to 2019. Each case was categorized as either "combined" or "collaborative" based on whether the two teams worked separately on separate problems or together on the same problem, respectively. Data points collected included combined and collaborative cases, operating room hours, and total hospital charges billed.

Of the 7564 total plastic surgery cases performed, multidisciplinary cases made up a minority of total cases (16 percent) but required 32 percent of the operating room hours and provided 49 percent of the total charges billed. Collaborative cases alone accounted for 20 percent of the service's operating room hours and 39 percent of total charges billed, while making up only 8 percent of total cases.

Relative to cases where plastic surgery operates alone, combined and collaborative cases account for a disproportionately high number of operating room hours and provide a disproportionately high amount of charges billed.