Data and the Art of Surgical Preference Card Maintenance

Area of Science:

• Health care operations research
• Surgical supply chain management
• Quality improvement in surgery

Background:

• Surgical preference cards often lead to substantial supply waste due to variations in surgeon requests.
• Unused surgical supplies represent a significant and preventable cost in healthcare.

Purpose of the Study:

• To optimize surgical preference cards by analyzing historical supply usage data.
• To quantify the potential cost savings and waste reduction achievable through preference card optimization.

Main Methods:

• Utilized linear time-series regression models on historical surgical receipt data (2019-2023).
• Developed three distinct optimization strategies for surgical preference cards.
• Calculated baseline and optimized waste, comparing costs across different optimization levels.

Main Results:

• The study analyzed 1298 preference cards across 432 procedures.
• Current preference cards resulted in an average of $1294.41 in unused items per case, totaling over $3.7 million annually.
• All optimization methods reduced waste; stratifying existing cards by procedure yielded the greatest savings, particularly in colorectal surgery (55.8% reduction).

Conclusions:

• Regression-based optimization of surgical preference cards effectively reduces waste and associated costs.
• Stratifying existing preference cards by surgical procedure offers the most significant potential for cost savings and waste minimization.