The impact of induction room on operating theatre performances

Abstract

This paper addresses the operating theatre (re)design problem. Because of the increasing budget pressure and the need for facilities sharing, hospitals managers are constantly faced with difficult challenge: keep only activities that are profitable in regard to medical efficiency, high quality service and ensuring patient safety. In this article, we evaluate the settingup of one induction room in an operating theatre department in order to improve the use and efficiency of the operating rooms. Two approaches were considered in this study. The first one consists of having all patients anaesthetised in the operating room, whereas in the second one, they could be anaesthetised in the induction room. Random and real data were collected during this study. First results showed a 'positive' impact of the induction room on the operating theatre performances. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.