Improving efficiency in the operating room

New ophthalmology residents sometimes mistakenly think that performing a surgery quickly is the key to doing more cases in a day. On the contrary, rushing a surgical procedure can result in a higher complication rate and less desirable outcomes, which will actually lower efficiency. Improving efficiency in the operating room is a multistep process that can result in the ability to help more patients per day while maintaining a high degree of safety and achieving excellent visual outcomes. This is particularly important for cataract surgery because the volume of cases is expected to increase to new highs.The first step in becoming more efficient is to analyze your current level of performance. This means keeping track of key metrics during your operating days. We must document the timing of all steps in the operating room, not just the surgical time and the room turnover. The surgical time, or cut time, is from the first incision until the end of the surgery. The turnover is the time between wheeling one patient out of the operating room and bringing the next patient into the room.