Development of a Plastic Surgery Supply Cart: Patient Outcomes and Quality of Care

BACKGROUND: Plastic surgeons experience unique quality issues related to the specialty nature of patient procedures. Lack of accessibility to specialty supplies is a rate-limiting variable that impacts treatment efficiency and hospital resources. This study had the following goals: (1) to develop a mobile plastic surgery cart and (2) to assess the impact of a plastic surgery cart on time to treatment of consults. METHODS: Two plastic carts were developed using preexisting hospital supplies. Cart composition was designed and approved by hospital staff. A prospective study was conducted to assess overall time to treatment of patient consults throughout the hospital comparing a plastics cart versus a traditional hunt and gather methodology. One surgeon recorded time to treatment with and without the plastics cart for each consult during on-call duty hours over a 6-month period. RESULTS: A total of 40 patients were treated for either head or neck (60%) or hand-related (40%) cases. The average time (minutes) to treatment across all procedures with the plastics cart was 3.7 ± 1.9 versus 46.3 ± 60.0 without the plastics cart. The maximum time to treatment was 9.5 minutes with the plastics cart and 3 hours without the plastics cart. Usage of the plastics cart resulted in a significant reduction in total time to treatment of 42.5 ± 60.3 minutes (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: A specialty supplies cart has quality improvement implications for patients, physicians, and hospitals. Increased accessibility of specialty supplies may significantly reduce the time to treatment for plastic surgery patient consults throughout a hospital.