Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare (Apr 2023)
Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Separate Anesthesia Induction Rooms on Multidisciplinary Work Flow in Operating Rooms
Abstract
Stefan Schad,1,2,* Michael Booke,1 Serge C Thal,2 Alexander Bentley,2 Hendrik Booke3,* 1Department of Anesthesiology, Varisano-Klinik, Bad Soden, Germany; 2Department of Anesthesiology, Helios University Hospital Wuppertal, University of Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany; 3Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, University Hospital of Münster, Münster, Germany*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Michael Booke, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Varisano-Klinik, Bad Soden, 65812, Germany, Tel +49 6196 657651, Email [email protected]: Operating suites are multidisciplinary units par excellence, and mostly they are the most expensive units in hospitals. Interdisciplinary workflow and efficiency are therefore crucial, which is influenced by floor plans varying from hospital to hospital. Most operating rooms are equipped with adjacent induction rooms, allowing preparation and anesthesia induction of the next patient, while the previous patient is still in the operating room. Parallelizing the working steps is thought to improve turn-over time, thus increasing throughput, number of cases and finally revenue. However, this assumption has never been challenged.Methods: We analyzed workflow during regular working hours in an operating suite equipped with a mixture of operating rooms (OR) with next door induction rooms and operating rooms without induction rooms. This allows a direct comparison of both structural elements for efficiency using utilization data over a 24-months period. Both settings were used for gynecological operations.Results: Key result is that induction rooms do not improve perioperative workflow including turn-over time. Instead, ORs without adjacent induction rooms have a significantly shorter turn-over time and OR occupancy duration per case, although surgical time and staffing were similar.Discussion: Adjacent induction rooms require extra space, funding, and high maintenance costs, but they do not speed up peri-operative processes. Modern anesthetic techniques allow for fast induction of and emergence from anesthesia. Induction rooms adjacent to the OR are no longer needed if general anesthesia without extended monitoring is used for the majority of cases.Keywords: operating room, efficacy, induction room, turn-over time
