Reliable Software Blog

The Elective Surgery Backlog

Written by Gordon MacMaster | May 18, 2021 12:42:23 PM

COVID19 had a once in a lifetime (hopefully) impact on Hospitals in the United States  As the vaccinations continue to roll out and new cases decline, an issue is beginning to emerge.

Due to the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of elective procedures were delayed resulting in a significant backlog of cases.  An article in the Journal of Joint and Bone Surgery predicts a backlog of 1 million plus cases in Elective Orthopaedic Surgery alone.  

Patients will not spontaneously heal.  There is a finite number of surgeons and operating rooms available.  More overtime is not desirable for an already exhausted healthcare workforce.

How can the challenge of the backlog be met?

The answer is to increase the availability of Operating Rooms by reducing underutilized time during normal working hours. 

Even one extra surgery per OR per week will reduce the backlog.

We have developed a predictive model that is more accurate at scheduling time for a surgeon for a particular procedure.    But that data needs to be easily accessible.  

Often it is difficult for Hospital Administrative and Clinical Executives  to conduct ad-hoc queries into your data because - well - you are not a database developer.

Requests for data must be given to someone else, maybe even completing a help ticket.

The data is eventually extracted and provided to the executives to review, usually as a spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet triggers another question but that data was not part of the original request. 

So the process starts all over again.

With our strategic partner Chata it is possible to access your data without the need for technical support and most importantly -  no learning curve.  Simply ask a question as you would to another person and get the information you need.  

 

To learn more click here.