Although Operating Rooms of the Future include much advanced technology, they have demonstrated concepts that can be readily implemented by any hospital. The hospitals that stand to derive the greatest benefits perform a lot of short cases and are hard up for OR capacity. They should work on reducing Non-Operative time by taking the following steps:

    1.  Introduce parallel processing, stealing ideas shamelessly from the
         published literature.
    2.  Work on eliminating delays that impact non-operative time; many
         of these arise outside the OR.
    3.  Consider purchasing mobile OR tables because they could enable
         them to reduce Non-Operative time by about 10 minutes.

For the full article, which includes comments by Dan Krupka and Dr. Warren Sandberg from the Massachusetts General Hospital, follow this link to the March 2008 issue of Hospitals & Health Networks.

Operating Rooms of the Future Not Just About Technology (AAPA News July 2007)

The American Association of Physician Assistants News carries Dan Krupka's comments about adapting the concepts pioneered in the Operating Room of the Future at Massachusetts General Hospital by Dr. Warren Sandberg and his colleagues for use at the MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland. Download a copy of the article.

February 2007 issue of OR Manager

"Parallel processing to reduce OR Time" includes comments by Managing Principal Dan Krupka on tips for reducing nonoperative time and the importance of involving senior management before launching a project designed to increase OR Thoughput.

Article in the journal "Surgery"

The clinical team from the community hospital has published an article on the project in Surgery. (Harders, M., Malangoni, M.A., Weight, S., Sidhu, T., Improving Operating Room Efficiency Through Process Redesign. Surgery 2006; 140: 509-516.)

January 2006 issue of OR Manager

The January 2006 issue of OR Manager carries an account of the highlights of the project described in the article in Surgery. See "Focusing on what is essential helps tighten up turnover time"