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There are two main parts to flipping rooms: intra-case and inter-case. They are complementary and work together iteratively.

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An analogy of this iterative type of scheduling –adjusting individual cases(intra-case) and schedule (inter-case) to make a good fit– is that of a stone-mason building a wall or a fireplace: You work with what you have, but you can chisel and mortar individual stones (cases) and fit them next to complementary stones where they work best for structure and appearance (flow and satisfaction). You end up with solid art instead of a pile of rocks like so many schedulers give you.

One observation that has arisen from multiple webinars is that some people do not have the talent for this. They can’t envision a structure nor have use of software tools that help them productively schedule.  Since a normal OR has frequent change-overs of the person directing cases throughout the day, there will be many times when someone not adept at case flow, or the software, will be in charge.

A possible solution for this is for scheduling to be done as a service. People trained with good software tools that aid their natural organizing ability can run an OR from off-site. The on-site OR crew’s knowledge of individual OR rooms, surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists can be leveraged to good advantage by the off-site scheduler. For long term engagements, dedicated off-site schedulers will come to know the intricacies of an individual OR well and be able to free up the on-site schedulers when needed.

Scheduling affects too many people, involves too much revenue (millions), and can incur too much cost to be relegated to poorly trained staff using meeting-room software if a facility wants to continue to be competitive.