Improving starting time in operating rooms of a tertiary hospital in Rwanda: a quality improvement project

Abstract

Background: Delay in the first surgery start time at operating room (OR) could inevitably decrease utilization, lose very expensive OR resources, reduce satisfaction of patients and staff and potentially affect quality of patient care.

Objectives: This study utilized the Strategic Problem Solving (SPS) quality improvement approach to increase the percentage of first surgeries started on time at a tertiary hospital in Rwanda.

Methods: A pre- and post-intervention study was conducted between March 2016 and March 2017. The intervention included developing a policy on staff arrival time, training sessions on the policy and regular supervision of OR managers to ensure staff were arriving on time.

Results: Chi square tests were performed to analyze the pre- and post-intervention results. The percentage of first surgeries started on time significantly increased from 3% pre-intervention to 25% postintervention (P<0.001), average duration of delay decreased by 55 minutes (P<0.001) and the percentages of nurses, anesthetists and surgeon arrived on time also significantly increased (P<0.001).

Conclusion: The SPS approach can be useful in addressing the starting time of first surgery at OR. Support from the senior management team and buy-in from staff are essential. This project cannot eliminate confounding factors and the results cannot be generalizable to other settings. Longer term evaluation on sustainability is needed.

Keywords: Delay first surgery, operating room efficiency, quality improvement, strategic problem solving