Utilizing Quality Improvement Methodology to Decrease Surgical Delays.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Quality Improvement Science
• Surgical Operations

Background:

• Surgical delays incur significant costs, impact patient safety, and reduce satisfaction.
• Preventing operating room (OR) delays is essential for efficiency and patient care.
• A quality improvement (QI) initiative was implemented to address common causes of surgical delays.

Purpose of the Study:

• Identify primary causes of surgical case delays.
• Implement targeted interventions to reduce overall and first start case delays.
• Improve OR efficiency and patient safety through process optimization.

Main Methods:

• A preintervention audit identified preoperative paperwork issues as the leading cause of delays.
• Standardized processes for preoperative paperwork completion and inter-team communication.
• Utilized electronic health records and OR scheduling data for delay analysis.

Main Results:

• Achieved a 39.2% relative reduction in overall surgical delays.
• Reduced first start case delays by 25.0% relative.
• Decreased delays attributed to paperwork by over 49.6% for first start cases and 60.1% for all cases.

Conclusions:

• Standardized processes and staff buy-in effectively reduced surgical delays.
• Simple, low-cost interventions yielded substantial improvements in OR efficiency.
• The QI initiative demonstrated sustainable positive impact on delay rates.