Preventable Variation within Operating Rooms: Information Quality Perspective

This paper uses the concepts of information quality to identify the preventable variation in terms of disruption and delay within the operating rooms. This paper has presented the results of 22 cases undertaken inside operating rooms of a public hospital in Australia. Results demonstrated that preventable variation resulted from poor information quality increases surgical time and forced surgeons and patients to endure an unnecessarily average delay of 25.68% (or about 26%) of the total surgery time. Such additional time could be utilised to deal with the pressure of emergency cases and to reduce the waiting lists for elective surgery.