Capital planning for operating theatres based on projecting future theatre requirements

Abstract

During 2006, NSW and ACT Health Departments jointly engaged KPMG to develop an Operating Theatre Requirements’ Projection Model and an accompanying planning guideline. A research scan was carried out to identify drivers of surgical demand, theatre capacity and theatre performance, as well as locating existing approaches to modelling operating theatre requirements for planning purposes. The project delivered a Microsoft Excel-based model for projecting future operating theatre requirements, together with an accompanying guideline for use of the model and interpretation of its outputs. It provides a valuable addition to the suite of tools available to Health staff for service and capital planning. The model operates with several limitations, largely due to being data dependent, and the state and completeness of available theatre activity data. However, the operational flexibility built into the model allows users to compensate for these limitations, on a case by case basis, when the user has access to suitable, local data. The design flexibility of the model means that updating the model as improved data become available is not difficult; resulting in revisions being able to be made quickly, and disseminated to users rapidly.

What is known about the topic? In New South Wales there has been no documented, consistent, robust planning methodology to guide the estimated future requirements for operating and procedural suites, nor recommendations available to determine the number of operating theatres that provide optimal efficiency.

What does this paper add? Opportunities to design and build new operating suites rarely arise. There is a great deal of uncertainty about future surgical models of care and recent history shows that technology and development of new procedures and approaches have greatly changed the nature of the theatres and rooms required for many interventions. This paper describes the process of developing a planning methodology to estimate the future operating suite capacity required to meet forecast future surgical demand across New South Wales for both metropolitan and rural Area Health Services.

What are the implications for practitioners? Although now used only in the New South Wales public sector, the methodology can easily be applied to planning requirements for operating theatres in the private sector.