Theatre efficiency is an increasingly important factor as the health service is faced with an ever greater number of patients, but tighter fiscal restrictions. We carried out an audit was to utilise data collected routinely on the Opera Surgical Management System (CHCA, Canada) to look at the efficiency of orthopaedic theatre usage, and to look for potential areas of improvement. The data related to all elective procedures carried out by a single Orthopaedic Consultant in a city hospital, over a one year period.

We found that lists frequently started late, with the first patient of the day entering the anaesthetic room after 9 am on over 50% of occasions. The reasons for this were not regularly recorded. There was a wide variability in the length of time taken to anaesthetise and position the patients. Although there was a weak association with the underlying health of the patients (ASA score), the seniority of the anaesthetist was not available for correlation. The turnaround time between cases was variable, with a tendency for it to take longer over the lunchtime hours. Almost a third of lists finished before 4.30 pm, mainly due to patient cancellations, however nearly a third of lists finished after 5.30 pm.

We found that data routinely collected on our theatre management system provides useful information that could potentially be used to fine-tune our peri-operative processes, however greater detail about specific timings and delays affecting the patient journey would be required before any recommendations could be made to improve theatre efficiency.