Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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1 2 2 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 | February 2015 A t Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, the consensus was that tools and tasks had already been optimized, so the goal was to improve turnover time by optimizing human resources. "We felt like our processes and our materials were as efficient as we could make them," says Diana Ramsey, MHSA, the director of surgical services. Still, with 12 busy ORs, 4 procedure rooms, and a staff that needed to eat lunch and take occasional breaks, some level of unpredictability was inevitable. To tackle the problem, the hospital created revolving daily perioperative utilization teams (PUT teams) and heavily emphasized both teamwork and accountability. The assigned PUT teams, which change from day to day, can include any staff member able to function as either a nurse or a surgical tech. Each team member is assigned a zone of emphasis (ORs 1 to 5, for example), but is also expected to help out with other rooms, when available. When the circulator makes the call that a room is ready, everybody in the room is expected to pitch in, says Ms. Ramsey, and any available PUT team member hurries to lend a hand, as well. A checklist for PUT team members helps prevent duplication of efforts. To pave the way for the PUT approach, the hospital focused on accountability, says Ms. Ramsey. "We spent a month talking about it. We were challenged about 2 years ago by our new CEO for everyone to be accountable to their professions, their jobs and the patients entrusted to our care." Another month was spent on gratitude — making sure staff members made co- workers feel recognized and appreciated when they went out of their way to help. "When it comes to turnover, you can get a kind of tunnel vision and think only about what happens in the OR," says Ms. Ramsey. "We may not think about what kind of teamwork was needed before that patient even came into the room. "But you need to be proactive. Maybe we have a case going on and we have a limited number of instrument sets because it's something we don't do that often, but we've got another one to follow. That's when we need to know a SaVING 60 SeCONDS The One-Minute Manager