A study published in the British Journal of Surgery examined the relationship between case list order and operative performance.
Researchers gathered operating room lists that included the 35 most frequently performed procedures by senior surgeons over 26 months in the U.K. The procedures spanned 38 private hospitals.
They created a linear mixed‐effects model that included 255,757 procedures and performed matched analysis of 48,632 pairs of procedures.
The study shows switching between procedures increased the operating duration by an average of 6.48 percent. The overall reduction in operating time from completing the second procedure straight after the first was 6.18 percent
"This pattern of results was consistent across procedure method and complexity," study authors noted.