The Memorial Herman Southwest Hospital located in Houston, Texas, had operating rooms that were associated with high turnover times in neurosurgical and orthopaedic spine cases. To contain the situation, a cross-functional tool was set up to utilize six sigma tools with the aim of reducing the viability of the process and at the same time improving staff satisfaction.
In the beginning, the team set 25 minutes as the average turnover for the operating rooms. This means that anything below the figure means that there was some defect. However, an error caused during data collection made the figure collected to skyrocket to a whopping 40%. The error was associated with faulty recording time.
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The team used a Fishbone diagram to identify the major issues. The biggest problems included the unreliable availability of those supposed to set up equipment and conflict in scheduling of equipment in that an equipment could be scheduled for two different processes at the same time. Other glitches concluded the non-existence of a formal management system to manage conflicts and wrong recommendations of requirements.
To solve these issues, the DMAIC process was initiated to help implement a flagging system that helped to channelize and schedule equipment. In order to maintain consistent and reliable data, review sheets were prepared, monitored, and updated. This helped to assist in managing all resources and ensuring that they are used reliably.
A review carried out on the OR turnover after these techniques were implemented point out that there was a 39% improvement in overall processes. The turnover time is currently at 20 minutes which is below the baseline that had been set at 24 minutes. The staff members report that they are currently satisfied more than ever.
