Optimizing block scheduling can ensure a hospital or surgery center is operating at top efficiency.
Here are four tips to improve block scheduling:
1. Following two principles — that shorter blocks are less efficient than longer blocks and that utilization thresholds are essential — can help guide optimal block scheduling, according to William Panza, MD, practicing anesthesiologist and consultant with Surgical Directions, and Robert Dahl, MBA, senior vice president and COO at Surgical Directions.
2. Leaders should consider rearranging or revoking the block time of surgeons who are chronically late, according to Keith Smith, MD, co-founder and managing partner of Surgery Center of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City.
3. Ensure constant communication between the facility's schedulers and the physician office schedulers so everyone is informed when surgeons take time off and schedules need to be rearranged, according to Tom Jacobs, CEO of MedHQ and administrator at EndoLabs.
4. Make it easy for the surgeon's office to schedule surgery at the facility so the surgeon maximizes utilization of his or her block time, according to Catherine Sayers, director of operations at Pinnacle III.
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