Better Guidelines Could Reduce Va's Planned Construction Of Costly Operating Rooms V. HRD-81-54

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HRD-81-54 1 (1981-03-03)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabbpm0001 and id is 1 raw text is:

BY THE COMPTROLLER GENERAL.

Report To The Congress

OF THE UNITED STATES

Better Guidelines Could Reduce

VA's Planned Construction Of

Costly Operating Rooms

The Veterans Administration's criterion for
surgical facilities in new or replacement hospi-
tals 1 operating room for every 28 surgical
beds -- results in too many operating rooms.
The VA guideline fails to consider that some
occupants of surgical beds do not undergo
surgery and the time needed to perform a sur-
gical procedure varies according to the type of
surgery and the experience of the surgeon.

In this report, GAO presents a model for de-
termining the number of operating rooms re-
quired in a surgical suite. The model uses ac-
tual workload data, thereby taking into ac-
count each facility's unique combination of
surgical procedures and surgeon experience.

By staffing only the operating rooms needed to
support the workload, better use can be made
of nursing staff. Additional cost savings can
)e realized by using less skilled personnel to
:arry out many nonprofessional tasks now
iandled by operating room nurses.

HRD.81.54
MARCH 3, 1981

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