Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 27, 2025
Emergency Undocking in Robotic Surgery: A Simulation Curriculum
Published on: May 20, 2018
Evaluation of operating room inefficiencies and their impact on operating room duration using a surgical app
Dimitrios I Athanasiadis1, Sara Monfared1, Lava Timsina1
1Department of Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
Background:
Efficient utilization of the operating room (OR) is essential. Inefficiencies are thought to cause preventable delays. Our goal was to identify OR incidents causing delays and estimate their impact on the duration of various general surgery procedures.
Materials:
Three trained observers prospectively collected intraoperative data using the ExplORer Surgical app, a tool that helped capture incidents causing delays. The impact of each incident on case duration was assessed using multivariable analysis.
Results:
151 general surgery procedures were observed. The mean number of incidents was 2.7 per each case that averaged 109min. On average, each incident caused a 2.8 min delay (p < 0.001), however, some incidents were associated with longer delays. The procedural step of each procedure most susceptible to incidents was also defined.
Conclusion:
The identification of the type of incidents and the procedural step during which they occur may allow targeted interventions to optimize OR efficiency and decrease operative time.
