OR Leaders Say Coordination Beat Tech Buys This Year

The smartest move perioperative teams made this year was not a purchase, according to 10 leaders surveyed by Becker's Hospital Review. It was operational redesign.

Instead of buying a new tool, the leaders pointed to integrated operating models that put surgery, anesthesia, nursing, and frontline staff around the same data and the same accountability structure. A recurring tactic: the weekly capacity huddle, a standing meeting that catches resource conflicts, staffing gaps, and equipment shortages before they disrupt the surgical schedule. The operating room is one of the most expensive and revenue-critical spaces in a hospital, and small coordination failures compound into delays, cancellations, and burnout.

The takeaway for executives is that the gap in perioperative performance is increasingly about process and shared visibility, not software features. Technology still matters, but only when a team already agrees on who owns which decisions and works from a single version of the numbers. Buying analytics without fixing the operating model tends to produce dashboards nobody acts on.