The accuracy of surgery time estimations

Abstract

This article publishes the results of a study of surgery time estimations. The study examines the estimating accuracy of the duration of future surgeries between a surgeon-based estimating system and a computer-based system that examine data from previously made surgeries. The relative estimating accuracy of the two systems is evaluated by using two hypothesis tests. This article also investigates whether the surgeons’ option to include additional factors in their estimations result in more accurate estimates for procedures requiring longer-than-‘normal’ surgery time. The results show that the surgeon-based estimation system is less accurate in general than the computer-based system. However, in cases where median surgery time is exceeded, the surgeon-based system is more accurate than a calculated average value of the previous surgeries.

Keywords:

• estimation accuracy
• surgery time
• scheduling
• capacity planning