Noorderhart Hospital, supported by Vlaanderen Circulair, optimized surgical trays to cut sterilization costs by 50% (€56,500 annually), streamline workflows, reduce staff workload, and improve sustainability. This is an excellent example showcasing how regional collaboration drives circular healthcare innovation.

Process digital twins use AI-driven simulations to map OR workflows, identify inefficiencies, and test improvements without costly trial and error. By capturing granular data from just a handful of surgeries, hospitals can boost throughput, reduce variability, align teams, and support continuous improvement.

Rising costs and staff burnout make data-driven decision-making essential for operating rooms. By using process digital twins to simulate workflows, hospitals can test improvements virtually, align stakeholders, and build compelling business cases.

Operating rooms drive both revenue and costs, making efficiency critical to hospital performance. Key metrics, such as standardization, consistency, parallel processing, and optimal use of staff and materials, help identify improvement opportunities. Even small process changes, like parallelizing preparation steps, can reduce variability, save time, and boost OR throughput.

Activity-based costing links OR costs directly to resource use, giving hospitals clearer insights to cut expenses, benchmark performance, and justify investments. Using this approach, hospitals have achieved up to 8% annual cost savings while freeing OR capacity.

Improving operating room efficiency is about more than increasing surgical volume. It impacts staff well-being, hospital finances, and patient satisfaction. By broadening the focus beyond surgical time to include setup, breakdown, resource use, and team ergonomics, hospitals can uncover opportunities to streamline workflows, reduce costs, and create a healthier, more sustainable work environment.

DEO.care’s study of surgeons across four countries reveals five essentials for successful robotics adoption: adapt to workflows, streamline setup, align teams, focus on efficiency, and use data. The result: smoother ORs and better outcomes.

Robot-assisted surgery offers major benefits but can initially disrupt OR workflows and efficiency. By using digital twins and data-driven simulations, hospitals can map effective change, align teams, and integrate robotic devices smoothly. This will minimize disruptions, safeguard financial performance, and ensure long-term surgical and patient benefits.

The Quadruple Aim expands the traditional focus on patient outcomes, population health, and cost reduction by adding care team well-being, now recognized as essential to high-quality care. In the OR, this means using digital tools and process improvements to reduce staff fatigue, boost efficiency, cut costs, and enhance both team and patient experience.

Value-based care seeks better outcomes at lower cost, but hospitals often lack precise cost insights. Using process digital twins and activity-based costing, efficiency gains like higher throughput and fewer instrument trays show how smarter workflows can improve both quality and finances.

DEO.care’s Market Access Services help hospitals and medtech companies evaluate surgical innovations not only on patient outcomes, but also on efficiency, cost-effectiveness, staff workload, and sustainability. Using digital twin technology, DEO.care delivers real-world, data-driven insights that support smarter adoption and value-based care.

DEO.care’s new Instrument Analyzer uses data-driven insights to optimize surgical instrument trays, reducing waste, sterilization costs, and staff workload. By streamlining configurations, hospitals can improve OR efficiency, cut expenses, and enhance team well-being.