Discrepancies Between Planned and Actual Operating Room Turnaround Times at a Large Rural Hospital in Germany.

Objectives: While several factors have been shown to influence operating room (OR) turnaround times, few comparisons of planned and actual OR turnaround times have been performed. This study aimed to compare planned and actual OR turnaround times at a large rural hospital in Northern Germany.

Methods: This retrospective study examined the OR turnaround data of 875 elective surgery cases scheduled at the Marienhospital, Vechta, Germany, between July and October 2014.

Implications of Perioperative Team Setups for Operating Room Management Decisions.

Background: Team performance has been studied extensively in the perioperative setting, but the managerial impact of interprofessional team performance remains unclear. We hypothesized that the interplay between anesthesiologists and surgeons would affect operating room turnaround times, and teams that worked together over time would become more efficient.

Methods: We analyzed 13,632 surgical cases at our hospital that involved 64 surgeons and 48 anesthesiologists.

Teaching Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS): A nationwide retrospective analysis of 8202 lessons taught in Germany.

Objective: To examine whether faculty who teach the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course would improve with experience and, correspondingly, ratings from course evaluations would increase.

Design: Retrospective analysis of student evaluations of 262 ATLS courses held between 2008 and 2012.

Setting: All ATLS courses held between 2008 and 2012 nationwide in Germany.

Implications of Patient Age and ASA Physical Status for Operating Room Management Decisions.

Background: In elderly, high-risk patients, operating room (OR) turnaround times are especially difficult to estimate, and the managerial implications of patient age and ASA physical status for OR management decisions remain unclear. We hypothesized that evaluating patient age and ASA physical status in the right model would improve accuracy of turnaround time estimates and, thus, would have decisive implications for OR management.

Methods: By using various multivariate techniques, we modeled turnaround times of 13,632 OR procedures with respect to multiple variables including surgical list, age, ASA physical status, duration of the procedure, and duration of the preceding procedure.