Time is money.
When it comes to the operating room, the old adage couldn’t be more spot on. Even five wasted minutes during a single case can cost a health system hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars. Factor in the number of cases performed each day, week, or year, and the numbers can be truly shocking.
What’s more, an OR sitting empty – if, for example, a case finished early – has a different financial impact than one that runs over its allotted time block. It’s a lot to keep track of, and it’s not necessarily easy to see just how much money case duration inaccuracies leave on the proverbial (OR) table.
So we did some math to help visualize how scheduling just one procedure using a generic surgical term – craniotomy – can lighten a health system’s ledger.
