Orthopaedic Innovation Project

The vision of the Orthopaedic Innovation Project (OIP) is to build a culture and perioperative system supporting “great care, on time, every time” for the Lunder 3 perioperative unit. This initiative was established after the orthopaedic operating rooms were moved to the Lunder Building. Currently we are challenged by how to redesign our operations to most efficiently utilize the state-of-the-art space while continuing to meet the needs of our patients and staff.

Two years into the project, our team, together with front-line staff, has laid the groundwork to achieve our long-term vision. In Year One of the project, we improved the percentage of cases starting on time by 25 percent and reduced turnover times by 15 percent. While continuing to sustain these initial improvements, during Year Two we dove deeply into workflows specific to surgeons’ offices and perioperative environments. In the surgeons’ offices, we focused on improving the pre-surgical paperwork process by revamping our pre-operative surgical orders, equipment request forms and scheduling practices. In the operating room, four work teams were established to address challenges related to day-of-surgery case scheduling, pre-operative patient flow, equipment and instrumentation, and room turnover processes. To date, these four work teams have made some tremendous improvements and are on target to complete their assignments by the fall of 2013.

Throughout this journey, I have been most impressed by the relationships that have been strengthened across departments and disciplines at both senior leadership and front-line staff levels. I look forward to next year’s innovations.

Members of the Orthopaedic Innovation Project (OIP) Team

The Orthopaedic Innovation Project is led by Dr. Wilton Levine, Associate Medical Director of Perioperative Services, together with Edward Belmar, Orthopaedic Equipment and Instrumentation Manager, James Barone, RN, Orthopaedic Nurse Manager, Lauren Lebrun, MGPO Project Director, Dr. Robert Peloquin, Division Chief of Orthopaedic Anesthesia, and Dr. Mark Vrahas, Chief of Partners Trauma Service. Kate McKiernan, Orthopaedic Surgery Administrative Director, is the team leader for the surgeons’ office improvements.

US News & World Report

It is a great pleasure to once again report our extremely successful ratings in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals list for 2013. This year, the MGH is ranked #2 in the annual survey. While this is not as exciting as learning that we were #1 last year, we are all pleased to be associated with such a remarkable institution. In addition, the MGH ranked extremely well in all 16 subspecialty areas. Orthopaedics was once again ranked fourth in the nation! I have never been in an institution that spends as much time and effort on highly individualized specialty care of each patient.