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Decrease and Smooth Variation:
Limit Elective Surgical Admissions
Limiting or capping elective surgical admissions within a defined unit provides useful data about the occurrence of high and low demand for operating rooms. This data can then be used to work with surgeons to adjust the scheduling of surgical patients, which leads to smoothing the system-wide flow of elective surgical admissions.
Tips
  • Select one unit to test this change for one day.
  • Identify the average daily number of elective surgical admissions for the selected unit.
  • Limit (cap) admissions for the day to the average daily number of elective surgical admissions (the unit may take less than, but not more than, the number agreed upon).
  • Analyze the results of the test and use the data to work with surgeons to adjust the scheduling of surgical patients accordingly.