Surgical Cost Awareness Program Study: Impact of a Novel, Real-Time, Cost Awareness Intervention on Operating Room Expenses in Thoracoscopic Lobectomy.

Abstract

For surgical patients, operating room expenses are significant drivers of overall hospitalization costs. Surgical teams often lack awareness of the costs associated with disposable surgical supplies, which may lead to unnecessary expenditures. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether a Surgical Cost Awareness Program would reduce operating room costs. A prototype software displays the types and costs of disposable instruments used in real-time during surgery and generates insight-driven operative cost reports, which are automatically sent to the surgeons. A prospective pre-post controlled trial of thoracoscopic lobectomy procedures performed by 7 surgeons at a single academic center was conducted. Control and intervention groups consisted of consecutive cases from February 2nd through June 23, 2021, and from June 28th through December 22, 2021, respectively. The primary outcome was mean per case surgical disposables cost. Three hundred twenty-two lobectomies were evaluated throughout the study period (control: n = 164; intervention: n = 158). Baseline characteristics were comparable between groups. Mean disposables cost per case was $3,320.73 ± $814.83 in the control group compared with $2,567.64 ± $594.59 in the intervention group, representing a mean cost reduction of $753.08 (95% CI, $622.29 to $883.87; p < 0.001). All surgeons experienced a reduction in disposable costs after the intervention. Intraoperative and postoperative outcomes did not differ between the cohorts. Providing real-time educational feedback to surgical teams significantly reduced costs associated with disposable surgical equipment without compromising perioperative outcomes for lobectomy. Integrating the novel AssistIQ software across other procedural settings may generate further data insights with the potential for significant cost savings on a larger scale.