Operating room efficiency of orthopedic surgery during the COVID-19 era

The COVID-19 pandemic forced operating rooms (ORs) to adopt new safety protocols. Although these measures protected the health of patients and providers, their impact on OR efficiency remains unclear. Our objective was to further elucidate the effects of COVID-19 on orthopedic surgery OR efficiency.

This was a retrospective study of 14,856 orthopedic surgeries performed between December 1, 2019, and October 31, 2021.

Institutional perioperative databases were used to identify relevant orthopedic surgeries. The onset of the COVID-19 period was set as March 12, 2020, when a state of emergency was declared in Tennessee. Both 90-day periods before and after this date were used for comparative analysis of the pre-COVID-19, peak-restrictions, and post-peak-restrictions time periods. Delay of first case start time and turnover time between cases were used as primary measures of efficiency.

There were 1853 pre-COVID-19 cases, 1299 peak-restrictions cases, and 11,704 post-peak-restrictions cases analyzed. Delay of first case start time was found to be significantly different among the time periods (mean [SD] minutes, 7 [14] vs 8 [18] vs 7 [17], respectively; P < .001). Turnover time between cases was also significantly different among the time periods (62 [49] vs 66 [51] vs 64 [51]; P = .002).

Although significant, there was minimal absolute change in orthopedic OR efficiency during the onset of the pandemic. These results suggest that the protocols enacted at our institution appropriately maintained orthopedic OR efficiency, even in the context of the rapidly increasing COVID-19 burden.