Analyzing Operating Room Utilization in a Private Medical Center in Israel

Background: Surgery is a core activity in hospitals. Operating rooms are one of the most important and vital junctions in medical centers. The operating rooms and their staff are a valuable infrastructure resource, whose availability and preparedness affect human life and quality of care. The aim of this study was to formulate operational recommendations for improving OR utilization.

Methods: Mapping current working processes in the ORs of a large private medical center and analyzing OR data. Data on 23,585 surgeries performed between August 2016 to March 2017 were analyzed by various parameters, including utilization, capacity, working hours and surgery delays.

Results: Average OR utilization was 79%, while 21% was considered lost OR time. We found that two major factor contributed to lost OR time: the time intervals between planned blocks and the partial utilization of OR time. We calculated that each percentage of utilized OR time means 440 additional surgeries annually, indicating potential annual increase in income.

Conclusions: Increasing OR utilization would necessarily result with improvement in OR availability and increased number of procedures. Our analysis indicates better OR utilization in the private healthcare system compared to the current situation in the public healthcare system in Israel; therefore, the private healthcare system should be treated as a contributing factor to help lower surgery waiting times and release bottlenecks, rather than being perceived as contributing to inequality.