Team Leadership Experience
The surgical center unit is one of the most complex departments in hospitals due to the complexity of surgeries performed and the numerous processes involved to make the surgeries successful. Therefore, it becomes difficult to manage time in the department primarily due to cleaning after procedures, transporting of patients from the unit and setting up the room for the next procedure. The interval between surgeries in the operating room, also called operating room turnover time (ORTT) is defined differently according to the professionals involved. The nurses recognize turnover time as the time one patient leaves the room until the time the next patient enters the room and also the period of cleaning and preparing the room for the following procedure. The anesthesiologist recognizes the turnover time to be the time the patient is sent to PACU until the next patient is anesthetized. For surgeons, turnover time includes the time from the closure of a surgical wound until the first incision in a new patient (Wong et al., 2014). This paper discusses ways in which the operating room turnover time can be reduced and the stakeholders to be involved for the accomplishment of the task.
Problem or Issue
The effective management of time in surgical units has been a goal pursued by many healthcare organizations with the aim of reducing turnover time. Operating room planning is a complex task that requires expertise, coordination, and teamwork to achieve efficiency. Most importantly, there must be an interdisciplinary approach to time management of the operating room if turnover time is to be reduced. The operating room in which I work faces the same challenges experienced by other institutions concerning time management. Specifically, there is a big problem with teamwork between the nurses, doctors and the supportive staff. Lack of professional teamwork leads...
