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O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 | O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T
T U R N O V E R T I P
Designated Pit Crew Speeds Room Readiness
T
urnover
time makes
or breaks
an efficient sched-
ule. After a case, my
physician colleagues
and I know we're
ready to move onto
our next case within
a 10-minute window,
but what we don't
know is how long it's going to take for the room to be turned over.
And while double-booking ORs to swing between is a highly efficient
solution, it can be impractical to tie up an empty room while we're
working an hour-plus case.
In order to get more consistent turnover results, we designate a
bare-bones "pit crew" of available staffers to handle the task, instead
of multi-tasking OR staffers. Once the incision is closed and the dress-
ing is on, the surgical team escorts the patient out of the OR to recov-
ery and the scrub tech takes the instruments to central sterile. While
they're taking care of that, the pit crew moves in to clean the room,
park the necessary equipment outside the door and help to open the
next case. If your pit crew is made up of OR-experienced staff, they
could even stand ready to work the next case.
Garrick W. Cason, MD
University of Tennessee College of Medicine
Chattanooga, Tenn.
gwcason@gmail.com
z QUICK CHANGE
A post-op pit crew
can keep your
schedule on track.