Healthcare is constantly evolving, with changes stemming from government regulations, insurance mandates, and health system mergers. Amidst these shifts, hospitals and their staff are under increasing pressure to enhance patient safety and outcomes while simultaneously reducing costs. This pursuit often leads them to scrutinize every aspect of patient care for potential savings.
The Financial Impact of Operating Rooms
A critical focus area is the operating room (OR), which is both a major revenue generator and the largest expense for most hospitals. A study in the Journal of Neurosurgery highlighted this issue, revealing that disposable medical supplies worth an average of $968 are wasted per procedure, totaling approximately $2.9 million annually. Efficient management of items, ranging from low-cost supplies like sponges and gloves to high-cost items like screws and sealants, can yield a 20% savings from unused supplies.
The extent of OR waste also varies significantly among surgeons. Research indicates that there can be as much as a 22% difference in waste between surgeons performing identical procedures in the same hospital.
Resource Allocation for Surgical Teams
Managing this waste is a complex task. Each surgeon typically has a unique preference card for every procedure they perform, which is essentially a list of required items. With numerous procedures and surgeons at any given facility, managing hundreds of preference cards becomes a daunting task.
Traditionally, updating preference cards is a manual, time-consuming process that can consume weeks or months of a full-time employee's (FTE) efforts, often leading to incomplete updates and the need for continuous revisions. Due to the enormity of this task, many facilities struggle to keep preference cards current.
Advanced Tools to Reduce Costs in the OR
Leap Rail has revolutionized this process by collaborating closely with supply chains, eliminating over 95% of the manual labor involved in managing preference cards. With Leap Rail, teams can easily compare costs across surgeons and update preference cards with just a few clicks. The impact of this efficiency is significant, leading to reallocated FTE time for patient care, more efficient surgeries, and substantial savings per procedure.
Customers using Leap Rail's preference card tool benefit from decreased surgeon variance, enhanced card accuracy, reduced waste and inventory spend, improved surgeon satisfaction, and lower labor costs.
Leap Rail sets the industry standard for OR efficiency with its suite of tools, including dynamic analytics, an integrated notification system, and surgical case labels. Leap Rail represents a superior solution for healthcare teams striving for excellence.