Efficiency in the Endoscopy Unit: Can We ‘Turn Around’ Room Turnover? An Observational Quality Improvement Study

BACKGROUND: Endoscopy units are being challenged to provide timely and quality care, despite limited resources and an ever-growing patient population. Decreasing procedure time is unlikely to create sufficient time savings and may compromise quality. Non-procedural factors, such as room turnover, are important contributors to efficiency and represent an ideal target for quality improvement efforts. AIMS: The objective of this quality improvement study was to identify practices that will improve endoscopy unit efficiency at our centre. The specific aims were to (a) understand practices at local hospitals that contribute to room turnover efficiency and (b) examine the magnitude and sources of variation in room turnover efficiency across endoscopists and nurses at our centre. METHODS: Interviews were conducted with team leads at five local hospitals. Routinely collected data from our centre were analyzed to understand the magnitude and variation in efficiency by provider and reasons for delays. Non-procedure time defined as ‘patient 1 scope out’ to ‘patient 2 scope in’ was our primary measure of efficiency. RESULTS: Over the 12-month period, 750 outpatient procedures met inclusion criteria. Median non-procedure time was 19 min (interquartile range: 16–22 min). The variation attributable to endoscopists was 14.7% compared to 80.4% for unmeasured factors. CONCLUSIONS: The variation that remains unexplained by our model suggests that unmeasured factors play a substantial role in endoscopy unit efficiency and that our current endoscopy records are not capturing important contributors to efficiency. The next phase will involve focus groups and direct observation with the goal of identifying these unmeasured factors.