Evora’s collaboration with a major Victorian tertiary specialist hospital addressed a pressing challenge: the hospital faced escalating elective surgery waiting lists and soaring theatre costs, with patient throughput failing to keep pace. Tasked with building a sophisticated business intelligence solution, Evora empowered the hospital to dissect these complexities and drive substantial efficiency gains within its operating theatres.
Through a series of intensive workshops with directors and managers from Surgical Services, Health Information Services, and Medical Workforce, Evora uncovered a critical issue: inconsistencies in data definitions and operational metrics had created misalignments across departments. This lack of coherence presented an opportunity to unify the hospital’s understanding of theatre utilisation metrics and align them with statewide standards. For instance, the measurement of theatre utilisation—a pivotal indicator—required precise definitions for both the numerator and the denominator. Evora worked meticulously to clarify these components, establishing that utilisation would be measured from pre-operative sedation through recovery arrival, while factoring in changeover periods and session scheduling details.
Evora crafted a suite of sophisticated dashboards that provided a granular view of theatre operations, revealing that theatres were typically utilising only 70-75% of available time. This data, meticulously visualised, laid bare the areas where inefficiencies were pervasive, and the high cost of these unproductive times. The dashboards facilitated insights into the frequency of late starts and early finishes, the distribution of cases during regular hours versus out-of-hours, and detailed analyses across multiple dimensions such as day of the week, specialty, procedure type, and surgeon and anaesthetist performance. This new capability allowed for a nuanced exploration of operational data that had previously been obscured.
For the first time, the hospital could explore detailed data on session cancellations, average case durations by surgeon, and the drivers behind after-hours cases. The dashboards disclosed that nearly 50% of theatre sessions began later than scheduled, prompting a cascade of delays and costly overtime. Further analysis traced these delays to scheduling conflicts: many consultant surgeons with morning sessions at other facilities found themselves racing to reach the hospital in time for afternoon sessions. By collaborating with clinicians to adjust session times, Evora helped the hospital achieve a marked reduction in late starts.
Evora’s dashboards also unveiled a significant inefficiency in certain specialties, such as cochlear implant surgeries, where sessions often accommodated only one long case, resulting in underutilisation. Armed with this insight, the hospital implemented mixed-specialty sessions, allowing for a more balanced case mix. This intervention, guided by Evora’s data-driven recommendations, propelled theatre utilisation to approximately 85%, highlighting a remarkable improvement in operational efficiency.
Evora’s involvement yielded measurable outcomes across several critical areas:
Enhanced Theatre Utilisation: Utilisation rates surged to around 85%, translating to increased throughput and maximised theatre resources.
Substantial Cost Savings: The hospital saw a reduction in late finishes and out-of-hours work, achieving an average savings of $400 per session by reducing unnecessary overtime.
Compliance with Targets: With optimised theatre scheduling, the hospital maintained its elective surgery waiting list within the Statement of Priorities target range, underscoring its commitment to public health imperatives.
Unified Performance Metrics: By standardising theatre metrics and fostering a shared understanding of performance indicators, Evora equipped the hospital with a robust framework for ongoing performance evaluation and continuous improvement.
Utilisation rates surged to around 85%, translating to increased throughput and maximised theatre resources.
The hospital saw a reduction in late finishes and out-of-hours work, achieving an average savings of $400 per session by reducing unnecessary overtime.
With optimised theatre scheduling, the hospital maintained its elective surgery waiting list within the Statement of Priorities target range, underscoring its commitment to public health imperatives.
By standardising theatre metrics and fostering a shared understanding of performance indicators, Evora equipped the hospital with a robust framework for ongoing performance evaluation and continuous improvement.
Evora’s innovative use of data analytics transformed the hospital’s approach to theatre scheduling and resource allocation, underpinning a broader cultural shift towards data-informed decision-making. This case exemplifies how Evora’s expertise can elevate operational performance and drive sustainable improvements within the healthcare sector, delivering not just efficiency gains, but also long-term strategic value.
