Hospital Operating Room Overhaul Lifts Efficiency and Patient Satisfaction
by Cheryl L. Serra
Satisfied patients are a powerful marketing tool for health care organizations, as one hospital learned when it overhauled the scheduling and management of its operating rooms (ORs). The efforts led to increased efficiency and patient satisfaction and helped boost profitability.
Dr. Adam Blomberg, Vice Chief of Anesthesiology and Co-Medical Director of the Surgical Services Executive Committee at Memorial Regional Hospital in Florida, explains that a few years ago the hospital administrators realized that the OR could be run more effectively if they scrutinized the way things “had always been done before.” Well-run ORs are typically high profit centers.
High-quality care but growth was stagnating
Memorial Regional Hospital is a primary care hospital that has been recognized for very high quality care, but it was experiencing stagnation in areas such as staffing and case volume.
“We felt like we needed to make improvements,” Blomberg says. “We wanted to become the best operating room in not only the region, but in the country . . . We wanted surgeons to come from all over to operate here” and to know that their patients will get high-quality, convenient care, he adds.