Key result
Lean Six Sigma strategies cut surgical wait times ~10% and shorten operating room turnaround.
Why the study?
Patient wait times and operating room efficiency in perioperative services of a rural hospital required improvement.
May shorten OR wait times in rural hospitals; leaves open generalizability beyond single-center pre-post data.
Lean Six Sigma strategies were used to decrease patient wait times and improve operating room efficiency in the perioperative services departments of a rural hospital. Data from the various aspects of the patients' surgical pathway, including operating room turnaround times, were collected. Data from pre- and post-implementation of the workflow process changes instituted throughout the project were collected and analyzed. Lean Six Sigma methodologies were used as the instruments to observe, analyze, implement, and improve workflow processes in the operating room and in the same-day services areas of the hospital. Workflow optimization was encouraged within the various areas to improve efficiency and decrease wait times. As a result of the use of Lean Six Sigma techniques to improve workflow processes, patient wait times decreased by 10.2% from patients' arrival to hospital to their readiness for surgery. Furthermore, total operating room total turnaround time was reduced by 33.87 minutes.
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Godwin et al. (2020) studied Surgical patients. Lean Six Sigma strategies vs. Pre-implementation workflow was evaluated on Patient wait times and operating room turnaround time. Lean Six Sigma strategies decreased patient wait times from arrival to readiness for surgery by 10.2% and reduced total operating room turnaround time by 33.87 minutes.
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