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but it's never fast enough, is it?
"There are smaller cases where
the turnover could be faster, but
we get hung up on the sign-off
process in the computer," says a
survey respondent.
"We would like to consistently
be at 12 minutes. We're currently
at 14 minutes," says Kathy Van't Hof, RN, CIC, CNOR, the clinical
supervisor of ambulatory surgery at McLaren Northern Michigan-
Cheboygan Campus. Those extra 120 seconds would be precious
found time you could convert into more cases. Like Ms. Van't Hof, you
know that the faster you can turn a room over, the more OR time is
available, which translates into greater surgeon — and patient — sat-
isfaction and more revenue.
"Our team is engaged in the goal of providing the best service for
our surgeons, whom we affectionately refer to as our No. 1 customer,"
says Nancy Tonetta, BSN, OR charge nurse at the Advanced Surgical
Institute in Sewell, N.J. "Engaged employees take ownership of their
jobs and this leads to increased performance."
Dedicated turnover team?
If you have a dedicated turnover team, you're one of the fortunate few.
Only about 1 in 5 (22.7%) of our respondents have a dedicated turnover
team. Most centers employ assistants or extra scrub techs to assist the
OR team with turnover, an all-hands-on-deck, many-hands-make-light-
work approach. The Camp Lowell Surgery Center in Tucson, Ariz., for
example, has 2 OR assistants, each covering a hallway to assist the techs
and nurses with turnover. "They pull the next day's cases, assist with
breaks and run for things as needed, including turnover of rooms," says
T U R N O V E R
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN
ALL HANDS ON DECK "The entire OR staff helps with turnover.
Nobody sits around, ever," says one of our survey respondents.
