ArticleBMC health services research2023
Obstetric operating room staffing and operating efficiency using queueing theory.
Article in BMC health services research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Capacity Planning (Capital, Staff and Costs) of Inpatient Maternity Services: Pitfalls for the Unwary.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Progress of research on methods of human resource allocation in operating room nursing.Frontiers in public health · 2025Review
- Obstetric Outcomes of Nighttime Versus Daytime Delivery with Labor Epidural: An Observational Retrospective Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
introductionStrategies to achieve efficiency in non-operating room locations have been described, but emergencies and competing priorities in a birth unit can make setting optimal staffing and operation benchmarks challenging. This study used Queuing Theory Analysis (QTA) to identify optimal birth center operating room (OR) and staffing resources using real-world data.
methodsData from a Level 4 Maternity Center (9,626 births/year, cesarean delivery (CD) rate 32%) were abstracted for all labor and delivery operating room activity from July 2019-June 2020. QTA has two variables: Mean Arrival Rate, λ and Mean Service Rate µ. QTA formulas computed probabilities: P
resultsThere were 4,017 total activities in the operating room and 3,092 CD in the study period. Arrival rate λ was 0.45 (patients per hour) at peak hours 07:00-19:00 while λ was 0.34 over all 24 h. The service rate per OR team (µ) was 0.87 (patients per hour) regardless of peak or overall hours. The number of server teams (s) dedicated to OR activity was varied between two and five. Over 24 h, the probability of no patients in the system was P
conclusionQTA is a useful tool to inform birth center OR efficiency while upholding assumed safety standards and factoring peaks and troughs of daily activity. Our findings suggest QTA is feasible to guide staffing for maternity centers of all volumes through varying model parameters. QTA can inform individual hospital-level decisions in setting staffing and space requirements to achieve safe and efficient maternity perioperative care.
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