Readers Write: Unleash Human Capacity – And Leave Time for More Breakfast Burritos – With Better OR Scheduling

Unleash Human Capacity – And Leave Time for More Breakfast Burritos – With Better OR Scheduling
By Michael Bronson, MD

Mike Bronson, MD is an anesthesiologist with Providence Mission Hospital of Mission Viejo, CA; CEO of the Ketamine Wellness Clinic of Orange County of Laguna Beach, CA; and founder and CEO of AnesthesiaGo, which was acquired by PerfectServe in January 2022.

My path to becoming an anesthesiologist was, by all accounts, pretty normal. I went to undergrad, moved on to medical school, completed my residency, then joined a private practice. That was always the goal, and checking each of those boxes was fulfilling.

After I joined the practice, though, I started to wonder what was next. My whole life had been structured around working hard and staying focused on the future, and it felt a bit like I had reached the final phase.

Boy, was I wrong.

Like many other physicians, I was eventually thrust into a position that I never expected to inherit. There was some dissatisfaction in our group with the daily case scheduling process, and before I knew it, I was holding the hot potato in my hands.

As I leaned into this new responsibility, I most often found myself wrapping up daily cases around 5 p.m., only to be handed a stack of papers—representing the next day’s cases—and a pencil that was always topped with one of those old-fashioned detachable erasers. Why, you ask? Well, let’s just say changes, mistakes, and oversights were an inevitable part of the process.

This probably sounds relatable if you’ve ever doled out OR case assignments, but I’ll explain for everyone else. Fundamentally, it doesn’t sound too challenging—just put a name next to every case, make sure they’re not in two places at once, make sure they’re qualified to do every case, and make sure they’re credentialed at all locations.

But then come the other considerations. First, the person on call should get the most complicated cases. Second, you’ll find that surgeons often have preferences about who they want—and do not want—in the OR because of prior experiences. And finally, the patient may have a strong preference for a particular anesthesiologist because they were assigned to them previously. We always try to accommodate those requests when possible.

When you put all of this together, things can get messy. Like clockwork, every time I sent out a proposed schedule, calls and texts from colleagues would begin. Maybe somebody was double booked, or maybe there wasn’t enough travel time to get from one location to another. The reasons varied, but changes were always necessary.

In the end, this almost always took an hour or more, and I’ve seen anesthesiology groups where scheduling—which is typically done by a senior anesthesiologist—can take up to two hours. And remember, this is adding time to the end of the scheduler’s day, preventing them from going home or doing other important non-work activities.

If you’re reading this wondering whether technology can be used to improve this process, you’re asking the same question that popped into my mind several years ago. The short answer is yes, there’s a better way.

Scheduling technology isn’t necessarily new, but for a long time, the only vendors that existed were the ones that could take care of monthly scheduling needs: who’s on call, who’s working every day, who’s on vacation, and so forth. That’s a different animal than building a daily OR case schedule.

With intelligent OR case scheduling technology, you can use automation to quickly generate and distribute schedules that are free of the common mistakes people like yours truly would make when building them by hand. We’re all smart and well intentioned, but in this instance, technology is definitely the answer.

Going a step further, we can even champion provider wellness in a meaningful way. If a surgeon works best with a specific anesthesiologist, why not pair them together as much as possible to create an ideal working environment? As it turns out, technology can do that too.

I want to reinforce that none of this means we need to remove the human touch from healthcare. The best technology will make clinicians’ lives easier every day, but it should also give them a chance to provide meaningful oversight. No system is perfect, after all.

But in the end, shouldn’t we all be hyper focused on identifying and improving dated processes like the one I described? For me, getting home later every day because of scheduling duties meant less time with my family, and I had fewer chances to enjoy a favorite pastime with my son: grabbing a breakfast burrito.

Let’s all continue to think of better ways to unleash more human capacity by freeing ourselves from age-old processes that require too much time and effort. Less time being frustrated, more time caring for patients, and more time getting breakfast burritos with my son.