A strategy to decide whether to move the last case of the day in an operating room to another empty operating room to decrease overtime labor costs

We examined how to program an operating room (OR) information system to ass ist the OR manager in deciding whether to move the last case of the day in one OR to another OR that is empty to decrease overtime labor costs. We fir st developed a statistical strategy to predict whether moving the case woul d decrease overtime labor costs for first shift nurses and anesthesia provi ders. The strategy was based on using historical case duration data stored in a surgical services information system. Second, we estimated the increme ntal overtime labor costs achieved if our strategy was used for moving case s versus movement of cases by an OR manager who knew in advance exactly how long each case would last. We found that if our strategy was used to decid e whether to move cases, then depending on parameter values, only 2.0 to 4. 3 more min of overtime would be required per case than if the OR manager ha d perfect retrospective knowledge of case durations. The use of other infor mation technologies to assist in the decision of whether to move a case, su ch as real-time patient tracking information systems, closed-circuit camera s, or graphical airport-style displays can, on average, reduce overtime by no more than only 2 to 4 min per case that can be moved.