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Waste during spinal surgery expensive but reduced with educational program
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CHICAGO — Although the intraoperative spine surgery waste found in one academic medical center would extrapolate out to nearly $127 million nationwide, researchers have found the use of a simple educational program is effective in reducing the amounts of waste.
Alexandra Soroceanu, MD, presented her team’s findings at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the North American Spine Society, here.
“Implant waste has already been identified as a potential area of focus to reduce costs associated with surgical procedures, and has been identified in the areas of arthroplasty and orthopedic trauma,” Soroceanu said. “However, the incidence and cost of intraoperative waste has not yet been defined in the context of spine surgery.”
In a prospective observational study, Soroceanu and her team investigated wasted products and costly decisions during surgical spine procedures in their institution during a 25-month period, which involved 15 months of observation, followed by 10 months of data collected after the presentation of an awareness program.
 Alexandra Soroceanu |
Total number of spine procedures and incidence of intraoperative waste were recorded prospectively, Soroceanu reported, with data on the reason for the waste, associated costs and the types of products wasted also collected.
Overall, the team found that 20.2% of spine procedures resulted in waste during the 15-month observational period. Following the introduction of the educational program, Soroceanu reported the number decreased to 10.3%. Prior to the program, the monthly costs of waste were reportedly $17,680.29. Extrapolating this figure to a nationwide level, Soroceanu said, resulted in an annual estimate of $126.72 million.
Following the program, monthly waste costs were $5,876.87 — a reduction of 66%, she said.
Further, Soroceanu noted, waste went from representing 4.3% of the total operative spine budget before the educational program to representing 1.2% after the program.
“An awareness program directed at surgeons allowed us to decrease the cost burden by 66%,” Soroceanu said. “We were able to achieve these results by decreasing the proportion of implants being wasted and the incidence of surgeons changing their minds.”
Reference:
- Soroceanu A, Robinson A, Canacari E, McGuire K. Intraoperative waste in spine surgery: Incidence, cost and effectiveness of an awareness program. Paper #133. Presented at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the North American Spine Society. Nov. 2-5. Chicago.
- Disclosure: Soroceanu has no relevant financial disclosures.
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