Need for better resource management

The idea behind implementing a modern operating room management system was to better leverage resources like staff, time, budget and material. This was required because the hospital district wide goal was to increase operating room productivity by two percent. Productivity needs to be increased to cover the increasing amount of patients that will need surgeries. It was also known that a relatively big part of the personnel in the region is going to retire within a few years and there is not enough new qualified medical staff to replace the highly skilled work force. The equation is hard to resolve without proper tools that will help in managing the resource utilisation in the optimal way.

Co-operation – a key to successful implementation

“The implementation of Opera OR Management was a successful project. Everything was delivered on time thanks to GE’s professional project organization and support from GE’s experts. They really supported us finely whenever help was needed,” thanked Head Nurse Tuula Vuoristo.

“We were really surprised how smooth the Go-live of Opera OR Management was. After a few days of production use, personnel had no doubts that this system would fit perfectly to our working environment. One thing was sure; nobody wanted to switch back to the old system,” said Assistant Head Nurse of Anaesthesia, Jukka Helander.

The key for the successful implementation was the full commitment of the managers and personnel, well planned and executed trainings, close co-operation with GE’s experts, and effective information sharing throughout the whole organization. “It really was worth the time we spent in the training sessions. That truly paid off after the Go-live. Despite the fact that the overall know-how of using computers was not high, people learned to use the system rapidly,” Jukka Helander Head Nurse Tuula continued.

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Insight into the processes and possible bottlenecks

Managers can play back a working day afterwards and see how effectively operating rooms have been used and how the daily operations have been organized. The schedule status is simulated exactly like it happened on the day of operation.

Opera’s reporting tool is flexible and report modifications can be done easily. The inefficiencies in the processes can be easily identified and monitored.

Higher throughput and less overtime

“The afternoon hours are much better utilized after the go-live of Opera OR Management. There used to be some unutilized hours but now we can better control the usage of operating rooms. Thanks to this the number of executed surgeries is higher now than before. And despite the fact that we do more procedures there is less overtime work,” Vuoristo concluded.

High integrability enables reliable and time saving data transfer

Opera OR Management is integrated with the electronic patient record (EPR) of the hospital. The EPR sends patient demographics and other relevant information to Opera OR Management, and receives scheduling and procedure data from Opera. Thanks to the integration capabilities of Opera, implemented through Centricity Infoway, there are also interfaces to the financial system, to the infection register and to the central warehouse. It spares many working hours and increases data accuracy when information has to be typed in only once, and after that the data is shared with the other systems through the system integration.

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Opera OR Management is a surgical suite management solution that covers:

• Scheduling and optimisation of operating room capacity
• Day of operation documentation and OR status monitoring
• Management and anticipation of material requirements
• Powerful reporting and analysis
• Seamless integration with other information systems in the hospital

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