Squeezing Revenue Out of Elective Surgery

Elective surgeries account for 39% of hospital reimbursement in the United States, making foot and ankle surgeries particularly appealing to health care systems. Improving those margins means it’s crucial to focus on care efficiency and closely studying the operating room (OR) practices. Currently, with as little as 54% of OR time is devoted to actual surgery, there are opportunities. 

Skip the transfer to the operating table

From a unique foot and ankle perspective, researchers examined the impact of performing surgery on the stretcher (SB) versus the traditional method of transferring a patient to the operative table (OT). In their study, 52 patients undergoing procedures such as hardware removal, isolated gastrocnemius recession, soft tissue procedures, or foreign body removal at our day surgery unit were randomly assigned to either the SB or OT group. The total time spent in the OR room was, on average, six minutes shorter in the Stretcher group, primarily due to a quicker start time. There was no difference in the actual surgical time between the two groups. Most members of the OR felt that stretcher-based procedures improved OR efficiency and were equal or superior to OR TB procedures in terms of patient safety.