How Many OR Delays are Preventable? 82%?!

Due to an innovative collaboration between Chicago, Illinois-based ExplORer Surgical and Vasili Karas, M.D., M.S., an orthopedic surgeon who recently completed his fellowship at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, we now know that the majority of the delays and disruptions during surgery are likely caused by preventable issues—in this case, 82%.

ExplORer Surgical, which to date has more than 1,000 unique procedures on its platform, provides surgical teams with two-way video for case support and remote proctoring to create a digitized playbook.

When Dr. Karas began operating at Advocate Illinois Masonic in Chicago, ExplORer Surgical teamed up with him to quantify the challenges faced by surgeons transitioning to a new environment. For eight months at that facility, the ExplORer team observed and collected data on seven total knee arthroplasties (TKAs), finding that 82% of the delays and disruptions during these cases were caused by preventable issues, such as room setup and positioning errors.

When Dr. Karas transitioned to Rush Oak Park Hospital, ExplORer Surgical went with him—and pulled in his main medical device rep in order to build accurate surgeon-specific workflows for three types of procedures. All surgical team members were trained on the platform and used ExplORer’s Big Board functionality to passively deliver content to the in-OR support team during live cases.

Postop, team members completed a survey on how confident they felt in supporting Dr. Karas. These surveys were then used against baseline responses the study to record progress and change over time.

ExplORer Surgical found “an increase over time in staff comfort and confidence levels.”

“The Rush Oak Park Hospital team continually felt that ExplORer helped them stay on track, with one scrub tech noting that he is now ‘able to have exactly what [Dr. Karas] needs before he asks.’ In addition, both the operative team and medical device rep ‘Agreed’ or ‘Strongly Agreed,’ on average, that the ExplORer app was easy to navigate, helpful overall, and provided useful media, particularly for scrub techs.”

Specifically, they found that the team’s likelihood of recommening ExplORer to colleagues was 9.1 out of 10.

Dr. Karas noted, “ExplORer is a paradigm shift in surgical efficiency. We will continue to work and leverage this tool in new ways as we navigate COVID-19 and a world now focused more than ever on the remote provision of care,” said Dr. Karas.

As Jennifer Fried, CEO of ExplORer Surgical, explained to OTW, “This is just one example of the value we can provide for one hospital—the advantage of having a mobile technology platform is that it can scale to create value at hundreds or thousands of sites quickly.

“In 2020, our company grew 6x vs. 2019. We are continuing to see an inflection point in the market where digital and remote technology is becoming the standard of care for the OR and procedure suites, and we’re excited to continue on our growth trajectory providing value to physicians, their teams, medical device companies and patients globally.”