American Association of Endocrine SurgeonsStreamlining variability in hospital charges for standard thyroidectomy: Developing a strategy to decrease waste
Section snippets
Methods
We formed a multidisciplinary team that included endocrine surgeons (LFM and NDP), an anesthesiologist (JC), mid-level providers (JSB and MO), operating room (OR) and postanesthesia care unit nurses, a clinical business manager, a patient, and an industrial and systems engineer facilitator (CB). We undertook a systems engineering-based study of 6 perioperative processes: Preoperative clinic, preoperative holding area, OR, postanesthesia care unit, overnight observation, and postoperative
Results
Baseline data for all total thyroidectomy cases performed at MD Anderson during 2011 (n = 419) was obtained. Standard thyroidectomy (see Methods for definition) included 80 cases (19%). The key action steps in our process evaluation are listed below.
Discussion
With national emphasis on decreasing the costs of health care, improving quality, and increasing transparency, we investigated comprehensively our process for a single, common procedure performed by 1 academic, high-volume endocrine surgical group. We describe our surgeon-led project: Systematic assessment of perioperative processes that helped us to identify opportunities to improve efficiency, decrease waste, and focus on patient-centered quality of care. This type of comprehensive,
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Disclosures: We have no financial or commercial interests to disclose.