Surgical Article - Is Your Operating Room Management System Doing All This?

Surgical Article - Is Your Operating Room Management System Doing All This?

Surgery departments are usually revenue drivers for hospitals – but more often than not, they are not as profitable as they could be.

Why is this? Nearly every hospital department has its finger in the surgical pie, which makes a surgery department the victim of overlapping jurisdictions. The results are, unfortunately, all too common: double bookings combined with stretches of non-use, an inability to accurately track activities and billing hassles. Often, vital medical information does not get passed between caregivers, causing patients to answer the same questions multiple times and creating a major patient safety red flag.

But where there is a problem, there is a solution. Over the past few years, several healthcare companies have developed operating room management solutions for surgery departments that are designed to help surgery staff – and, in fact, all hospital staff – transform an inefficient but profitable department into one that drives down costs and generates increased revenue.

Not all software packages are equally helpful, however. If the time has come for your hospital to improve its operating room management, look for a solution that:

• Integrates easily with existing hospital software. Select a software solution that "talks” to other systems like billing, electronic health records (EHR), and supply management. Your facility will benefit from a solution that automatically adds vital information to an EHR and issues warnings when surgical supplies are running low.


• Automates clinical documentation. The most common cause of rejected or delayed claims is improper or incomplete documentation. Select a software solution that prompts all staff to enter the right information at every step of the surgical process.


• Has built-in monitoring features and reporting functions. Software alone does not improve efficiency. Hospital Surgery managers need thorough performance data that identifies areas in need of improvement so action can be taken quickly.


• Is expandable. Since your hospital will become able to use software to aid in the management of key surgical functions – like anesthesia documentation, patient tracking, and physiological recording – you need a surgical solution that can seamlessly take on such tasks without compromising the system’s performance.

If your hospital doesn’t have a comprehensive operating room management system, the time to start looking is now. After all, why wait to streamline surgical functions, improve patient care, and increase revenue?

(Read an interesting case study to learn more about what first-rate operating room management system can do for a hospital.)