Staff recruitment and retention and anesthesia coverage are among the top priorities for operating room leaders headed into 2024, according to a Dec. 22 report from ORManager based on a November/December survey conducted by the website.
About 76% of survey respondents said that staff recruitment and retention is their top priority for the new year, while 65% are prioritizing operational efficiency and 36% are prioritizing sustained volume.
Currently, 70% of respondents have more demand for OR time than capacity. Anesthesia coverage and staffing constraints were cited as the main reasons for not being able to run all ORs.
Other challenges include spending hours per day working on the OR schedule, managing staff dynamics and unpredictable and long-running cases.
About 54% of respondents said they have had to ask staff members to pick up extra shifts, and 56% said they have to resort to adding overtime or incentive shifts. Just over 8% had to cancel or reschedule cases due to low staffing.