CHICAGO – February 19, 2025 — As hospitals and health systems navigate increasing financial and operational pressures, improving organizational efficiency in surgical services has become a top priority.
Surgical Directions, the leader in perioperative and procedural care consulting, has identified key strategies to help hospitals achieve sustainable efficiency gains in 2025. By leveraging advanced analytics, workforce optimization, and collaborative governance models, health systems can improve patient throughput, optimize staffing, and enhance financial performance.
Key Solutions for Improving Organizational Efficiency
- Surgeon Access & Block Management Optimization – Data reveals that up to 30% of OR surgical block time goes unused. This is a huge opportunity cost. Implementing solutions to track block utilization and adopting a fair access system, with accountability, can improve primetime utilization by over 20% within 6–12 months.
- Data-Driven Staffing Models – Hospitals often struggle with misaligned staffing, leading to excessive overtime and reliance on costly travel nurses and anesthesia providers. Predictive scheduling tools that align staffing with real-time demand have been shown to reduce overtime by 15–20% while improving staff satisfaction.
- Process Standardization – Inconsistent workflows contribute to OR delays and decreased throughput. By streamlining preoperative readiness, first-case on-time starts, sterile processing, and turnover times, hospitals can increase surgical case volume by 10–15% annually.
- Collaborative Governance & Accountability – Implementing a Surgical Services Executive Committee (SSEC) fosters data-backed decision-making, surgeon accountability, and a culture of continuous improvement. We see even better engagement when SSECs are coupled with task forces, process improvement teams and surgical access committees that engage the broader procedural teams and enhance communication at all levels and procedural departments.
- Technology-Enabled Efficiency – Once the governance and processes are in place, Hospitals that integrate AI-driven analytics and automation into OR management report a 12–18% increase in operational efficiency by reducing case delays, improving room turnover, and enhancing scheduling accuracy.
“High performance in surgical services is not about cutting corners—it’s about leveraging the right workflows, technology, and governance structures to empower your people and improve patient care,” said Leslie Basham, President & CEO of Surgical Directions. “Hospitals that prioritize organizational efficiency in 2025 will be best positioned for long-term success.”
