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Article: Schedule the short procedure first to improve OR efficiency.
- Article from:
- AORN Journal
- Article date:
- October 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Association of Operating Room Nurses, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Imagine an OR suite in, which the patients on each ORs schedule always are prepared and available for their surgical procedures at the exact time that the preceding procedure ends. In this idealized vision, there is no down time because of late surgeons or patients, and ORs function at a high level of efficiency. Such a back-to-the-future scenario resembles OR suites of the 1960s and earlier, when surgical patients were admitted preoperatively and OR procedures were scheduled "to follow."
To satisfy their customers (ie, surgeons and patients), today's OR managers face a greater OR scheduling challenge than their counterparts encountered in the previous ...