Thought Leaders and Implementation Experts
Focusing on your Surgery Scheduling Program can result in improved financial and operational efficiencies. Over decades of evaluating surgery scheduling programs, we have identified the typical characteristics of an ineffective scheduling program: Late surgeons,...
Accurate Scheduling: If the OR schedule isn't accurate, hospitals are not working at maximum efficiency, have frustrated surgeons, dissatisfied patients and are losing revenue. Scheduling policies must be implemented that clearly state the governing rules of...
Finding a balance between access and productivity can get complicated. If you don’t have enough access in the OR, other hospitals will have a competitive advantage. If you over-staff to ensure access, you will fall short on productivity targets. Sullivan did a...
At one hospital in the US, sterile processing was such an issue, the facility’s leadership decided to cut the number of surgical cases for a month just to work on improving it. They took the smart step of engaging with Sullivan Healthcare Consulting. The facility also...
Finding the right leadership for the Sterile Processing Department can be tricky. Sullivan has found that many leaders in SPD are exceptional technicians, but they are not great leaders. In The Peter Principle, Laurence J. Peter writes, “In a hierarchy, every employee...
The OR at a Midwestern Hospital was a constant logjam. Surgeons were often unable to get on the schedule. Though this was their preferred hospital, surgeons would sometimes have to operate in other facilities, because they couldn’t be accommodated. The OR had a...
The success of a hospital is often measured by its OR. Surgery programs generate 65% of a fiscally sound hospital’s margin. And facilities that are in trouble usually have dysfunctional ORs. Volume might be declining; cases such as GI, endoscopy, or pain management...
Successful ORs – with efficient patient throughput – are like orchestras. With everyone playing his or her part, with a good conductor leading them, harmony is not only achieved, it becomes the norm. You may say your facility’s ORs resemble a cacophony instead of a...
According to Sullivan consultant Anne Roy, Capacity Management and Access to the Schedule work hand in hand. “Scheduling is the heart of surgery,” says Roy, “and we almost always find a scheduling issue when we assess an OR.” While schedulers need to run data reports...
It’s no surprise that ORs in hospitals of all sizes often — even daily — have add-on surgical cases. Emergencies happen. Patients’ conditions worsen and they require urgent attention. But at a hospital in the northeast, the daily add-on rate was 30 percent. So every...
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