Key result
A review of 40 papers on operating room inventory management categorized the literature into optimization techniques and practitioner reports, identifying future research directions for cost reduction.
This systematic review highlights the growing need for scientific optimization methods in operating room inventory management to reduce hospital costs without compromising patient care.
May prompt OR supply reviews for potential savings; leaves open prospective validation of optimization techniques.
Operating rooms are considered a significant revenue source, as well as the main source of waste and cost, among the hospital's departments. Any cost savings in operating rooms will have a broad financial impact. Over the last decades, many researchers and practitioners have conducted studies to deal with the issue of managing surgical supplies and instruments, which are highly affected by surgeons' preferences. The purpose of this article is to present an up-to-date review of research in the field of inventory management of surgical supplies and instruments. We have analysed the literature in a systematic manner and organised the identified papers into two groups: the papers that were published by scientific researchers and developed optimisation techniques and the papers that were published by practitioners and reported their observations of the current issues in the operating room. We also identify the future research directions leading to operating room inventory cost reduction.
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Ahmadi et al. (2018) conducted a review in Operating room inventory management. A review of 40 papers on operating room inventory management categorized the literature into optimization techniques and practitioner reports, identifying future research directions for cost reduction.
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