Abstract
Abstract
Objective:
Health systems are increasingly called upon to provide cost-effective care. Unneeded or redundant surgical instruments represent a perioperative inefficiency that can be targeted for cost savings. The current authors sought to determine the cost savings of reducing the number of unnecessary surgical instruments thoughtfully in commonly used gynecologic specialty instrument trays.
Materials and Methods:
For a quality-improvement initiative, surgeons conducted a one-time review of five commonly used instrument trays by the Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery (FPMRS) and Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) divisions of a medical center.
Results:
FPMRS and MIS surgeons reached consensus as a group on instruments that could be removed safely from five commonly used surgical trays in ∼1 hour. Seventy instruments were removed from these trays, which represent a total decrease of 19.1% in a single review. The cost savings for one turnover of these five reduced trays ranges from $6.39 to $98.90. This can be extrapolated to a total cost savings of $151,691 per year by multiplying the number of times each tray was used in the prior 52 weeks.
Conclusions:
The analysis showed that reducing the number of infrequently used surgical instruments in specialty gynecology trays can be an effective strategy for decreasing costs. This can be achieved by using a group consensus model. (J GYNECOL SURG 33:180)
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