Operating room design using agent-based simulation to reduce room obstructions.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Operations
• Clinical Engineering
• Human Factors Engineering

Background:

• Operating room (OR) safety is paramount in clinical care.
• Understanding surgical team movement and interactions is crucial for improving safety.
• The physical environment and procedural characteristics influence team dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how operating room (OR) environmental characteristics and procedure types impact surgical team movement and contacts.
• To identify design factors that can minimize unnecessary staff interactions.
• To provide data-driven insights for optimizing OR layouts and improving patient safety.

Main Methods:

• Video recording of surgical staff movements during procedures.
• Zoning the OR environment to analyze movement patterns (origin, destination, zones).
• Development of an agent-based, discrete event simulation model using collected data.
• Conducting a full factorial experiment with factors including OR size, layout, and team composition.

Main Results:

• Operating room (OR) size, circulating nurse (CN) workstation location, and team size were significant factors affecting surgical team contacts.
• Significant interactions were found between staff, procedure type, table orientation, and CN workstation location influencing contact frequency.
• The study identified specific environmental and team-related variables that directly impact the number of surgical team contacts.

Conclusions:

• OR design elements, specifically size and the placement of the CN workstation, play a critical role in managing surgical team contacts.
• Team size is also a significant determinant of contact frequency within the OR.
• Findings offer valuable implications for OR managers in optimizing layouts and for future research in designing safer clinical environments.