Mean operating room times differ by 50% among hospitals in different countries for laparoscopic cholecystectomy and lung lobectomy.

We explored whether there were large differences in operating room (OR) times for two common procedures performed by multiple surgeons at each of several hospitals thousands of miles apart. Mean OR time, "wheels in" to "wheels out," for ten consecutive cases of each of laparoscopic cholecystectomy and lung lobectomy were obtained for each of ten hospitals in eight countries from their OR logs. After log transformation, the OR times were analyzed by analysis of variance.