Public Data Commons

Proposal Abstract:

Waste has become a hallmark of the US health care system, accounting for over 25% of health care expenses. Operating rooms (OR) are major sources of material and financial waste. A 2017 observational study quantified the financial loss from single-use, sterile surgical supplies (SUSSS) opened onto the scrub table but unused during surgery. The study estimated that a single, academic neurosurgical department would save $2.9 million per year if it simply did not open items it did not use. Furthermore, these unused and unnecessarily wasted SUSSS are often disposed of as biohazardous waste, which needs to be either incinerated or sterilized prior to landfilling—resulting in atmospheric pollution and excessive energy consumption that contributes to environmental degradation and harms population health.

Systematically identifying unused (wasted) SUSSS at the end of surgery is time-intensive and involves handling objects potentially contaminated with blood and human tissue—thus, it is rarely done. Without consistent data assessing wasted SUSSS, it is impossible to quantify the waste and nearly impossible to improve the behaviors that cause the waste. To solve this problem of unnecessary and costly wasted SUSSS in the OR, we are developing computer vision software to assist with the identification of unused SUSSS on the scrub table at the end of surgery.

PUBLICATION: Goldfield NM, Malapati P, Chafitz T, Saravanapavan Y, Alamgir N, Gander J, Meyer MJ. Sterile surgical supply waste identification using asynchronous analysis: Pediatric surgery QI pilot. Surg Open Sci. 2023 Aug 9;15:32-37. doi: 10.1016/j.sopen.2023.07.025. PMID: 37609369; PMCID: PMC10440549.