Performance improvement in the perioperative system.

Hospital finance leaders should work with their organizations' perioperative leaders to implement a three-step process for identifying projects with the greatest potential for improving quality while reducing costs and increasing revenue. In essence, this process involves mapping the strategy, developing a list of potential projects, and culling projects that cannot reasonably be accomplished with available resources. The extent to which staff resources are available for such projects can best be measured using a simple spreadsheet designed for tracking special assignments of each staff member.