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B E N C H M A R K I N G
where."
At Chickasaw Nation Medical Center in Ada, Okla., Surgery Center
Manager Ralania Tignor, RN, BSN, is hoping a little friendly competition among her surgeons will lead to improvements. She recently
began sending individual surgeons on-time start data for comparison
purposes.
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Staff hours per case
If it's true, as Steve Noe, RN, director of surgical services at
Huntsville (Ala.) Hospital, says, that "labor is the expense that
you can control the most," you'll want to know staff hours per case
down to the minute. The industry-wide average for staffing costs as a
percentage of collections is 21%. Calculate this figure by totaling up all
the hours your clinical staff has worked during a set period of time,
then dividing that sum by the number of cases performed during that
time. A good benchmark to follow: 6 to 8 staff hours per case.
"It's the benchmark that all levels of management can look at and
know, in an instant, whether the staffing for the day was appropriate,"
says LoAnn Vande Leest, CEO of Northwest Michigan Surgery Center
in Traverse City, Mich.
Dan Simonson, CRNA, MHPA, of Spokane, Wash., breaks this benchmark down into 3 categories: licensed clinical (RNs), non-licensed
clinical (everyone else who touches patients) and non-clinical (administrative folks). "This is our most effective benchmark," says Mr.
Simonson, "because we can now measure against the most important
benchmark: our historical selves."
When measuring staff hours per case, be sure you track actual
worked hours in the OR. As one manager reminded us, "paid hours" is
a much wider net that captures significant unproductive hours and
paid time off.
O C T O B E R 2013 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
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