The OR Huddle
The OR huddle is a one-page summary of your operating rooms for the morning meeting. It sits on Rooms › Schedule and has four parts: how yesterday went, what today's schedule looks like, what came up on the Needs attention list yesterday, and what is booked for tomorrow. This article explains where to find it, what each line means, who sees room names, and how to present it, print it or get it by email.
Who Is This For?
- OR managers, admins and venue admins who run the morning huddle
- Surgical and perioperative leaders who want yesterday's numbers and today's plan on one page
Where to Find It
- Open Rooms in the left sidebar and select the Schedule tab.
- Select Huddle above the schedule, next to the zoom controls.
The huddle opens for today. Its header names the site and the day, for example Main Campus OR huddle, then Thu Oct 8 · Eastern time · numbers as of 06:58. All times are in your hospital's local time.
- Another day: select the arrows beside the date (Previous day and Next day).
- Another site: when your hospital has more than one site, pick one in the site filter at the top. If you are an admin for one site, the huddle shows only that site.
- Fresh numbers: while you look at today's huddle, the numbers update about once a minute.
- Back to the timeline: select the Schedule tab again.
The Huddle button shows where Room Analytics is turned on for your hospital. At some hospitals Room Analytics is for admins only. If a link to the huddle shows The huddle isn't available for your account., ask your Theator administrator. If it shows Couldn't load the huddle., select Try again.
On a Phone
A phone shows one day at a time. Select Yesterday, Today or Tomorrow at the top. From the desk sits under Today. The huddle opens on Today, or on Tomorrow from 15:00 your hospital's time. Print isn't available on a phone.
What the Huddle Shows
On a computer the huddle has three columns: Yesterday, Today with From the desk under it, and Tomorrow. In a narrower window it shows two columns.
Yesterday
The heading reads, for example, Yesterday · Wed Oct 7. Yesterday is the last workday before the huddle's date: Monday to Friday, or Sunday to Thursday at hospitals in Israel. On a Monday the heading reads, for example, Last workday · Fri Oct 9.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| First cases on time (5 min), for example 21 of 34 (62%) | Of yesterday's first cases, how many had the patient in the room no later than 5 minutes after the booked start. A room's first case is its earliest booked case of the day, and the room counts only when that case is booked to start between 06:00 and 10:00. A later case in that window doesn't take its place. A room whose first case is an emergency or accident case isn't counted. Preview after the number means the definition of this measure is still being confirmed with hospitals. |
| Room turnover, for example avg 29 min · 58 turnovers | The average time (avg) or the median time (median) from one patient leaving the room to the next patient entering it, in the same room, when the next case was booked to follow. Gaps over 90 minutes aren't counted. |
| Over booked end 30+ min, for example 9 cases | Cases where the patient left the room more than 30 minutes after the booked end. |
| Recorded, for example 31% · 110 cases | The share of the cases Theator was expected to record that it recorded. Theator expects to record a case when it is in a room with a Theator unit and its procedure type is one Theator records, such as laparoscopic, robotic, endoscopic or arthroscopic surgery. Procedure types excluded from recording at your hospital aren't counted. |
| Cancelled on the day, for example 6 | Cases booked for that day that were cancelled. |
Hover over the ⓘ next to a line to see how many cases it is based on, for example 34 of 36 first cases measured. A line reads Not enough data when too few cases had the times it needs. A line your hospital can't measure doesn't show.
Yesterday's numbers count the cases you have access to in Theator.
Two notices can appear under Yesterday:
- Room times aren't sent to Theator by this hospital, so on-time and turnover aren't shown. Your hospital sends booked times but not patient-in-room and out-of-room times.
- Room times are missing for 40 of 70 cases in this range. Numbers use the 30 that have them. Fewer than half of yesterday's cases have room times.
Today
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| First cases, for example 31 rooms · earliest 07:00 (booked), then 07:00 9 · 07:30 16 · 08:00 6 | How many rooms have their earliest booked case of the day starting between 06:00 and 10:00 today, the earliest booked start, and how many of those first cases are booked to start in each half hour. A room whose earliest case starts before 06:00 or after 10:00 isn't counted, even when it has a later case in that window. |
| Booked past 17:00, for example 5 rooms (booked) | Rooms with a case booked to end after 17:00. Select › to open today's schedule. |
| Since 18:00 yesterday:, for example 3 added · 1 moved · 6 cancelled | Changes to today's cases made since 18:00 the evening before: cases added, cases moved to another time or room, and cases cancelled. Select › to open today's schedule. |
What Today shows depends on what your hospital sends:
- Cases appear about 20 min after they start here, so today's list fills in as the day goes. Your hospital sends each case once it has started, so there is no booked list for today ahead of time. Tomorrow reads No forward schedule from this hospital.
- This hospital doesn't send a schedule. There are no booked lines, and no Tomorrow column.
From the Desk
From the desk counts yesterday's alerts from the Needs attention list on Rooms › Live: cases not started, cases running over, rooms open past the end of the day and schedule changes. Long turnovers and shift alerts aren't counted here. The article How Room Alerts Work explains the alerts themselves.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Yesterday's alerts, for example 14 · acknowledged 9 · not accurate 1 | How many alerts opened yesterday, how many someone acknowledged, and how many someone marked Not accurate?. A case that runs over opens a new alert at 15, 30 and 60 minutes, and each one counts. |
| Delays 9 · Schedule 5 | The same alerts by kind. A kind with no alerts is left out. |
| Reasons logged, for example Patient not ready 4 · Anesthesia 2 | The reasons people added to acknowledged delays. It reads No reasons logged. when there are none. |
| Not acknowledged yesterday, for example 5 | Alerts nobody acknowledged. Admins and venue admins also see each one, with the room, the alert and the time it opened, for example OR 4 · First case not started · 07:46. Select › to open yesterday's schedule. |
| We're checking 1 report of a wrong alert. | Someone marked an alert Not accurate?, and Theator is checking the room's data. |
When there were no alerts, From the desk reads No alerts yesterday.
Tomorrow
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| First cases, for example 29 rooms · earliest 07:00 (booked) | As in Today, for tomorrow's first cases. |
| Cases booked, for example 128 | Every case booked for tomorrow that isn't cancelled. |
Rooms Without a Theator Unit
Under the columns, a line such as 51 rooms have no Theator unit counts the rooms in the huddle's scope that have no Theator unit. It counts rooms, not cases.
Who Sees Room Names
Admins and venue admins see room names under Over booked end 30+ min and Booked past 17:00, and in the Not acknowledged yesterday list. A venue admin with a site sees names only for that site's rooms. Everyone else sees the same counts without names, and the header says Room names aren't shown for your account.
The huddle never names a patient, a surgeon or a procedure.
Present the Huddle in a Meeting
Select Present before you show the huddle to a room. Present shows counts only: no room names and no list of unacknowledged alerts, even for admins. A line under the header reads Presenting: counts only, no room names. Select Stop presenting to go back to your own view. Present changes only your own screen.
To show the huddle in the meeting, share your own screen to the room's display. Don't log in to Theator on a shared computer in the room.
Print the Huddle
On a computer, select Print, or press P when you aren't typing in a field. The printout has only the huddle, in black text, for the site on screen. It leaves out the buttons and the ⓘ icons, adds a line such as Printed 06:59 by Dana R. · numbers as of 06:58, and ends with Confidential: for internal operational use.
To print counts without room names, select Present first.
Get the Room Analytics Email Every Morning
Email me this every morning shows at the top of the huddle for admins, venue admins, and users whose position is Surgical Leadership, OR/PeriOp management or C-Suite, as long as they don't already get a daily Room Analytics email.
Select it to set up a daily Room Analytics report email at 06:30 for the site picked in the site filter. With no site picked, the email covers every site you have access to, so pick a site first if you want the email for one site. The button then reads You get this at 06:30 · Change ›. Select it to open Report Subscriptions in your user settings, where you can pause or delete the email. If setting it up fails, you see Couldn't set up the email. Try again.
Common Questions
Why does Yesterday show Friday on a Monday? Yesterday is the last workday before the huddle's date, so on a Monday it shows the Friday before.
Why don't my Yesterday numbers match a colleague's? Yesterday counts the cases each person has access to in Theator. Two people with different access can see different numbers.
Does Present hide room names from my colleagues too? No. Present changes only your own screen. Everyone else sees the huddle the usual way for their account.
Can I look at the huddle for an earlier day? Yes. Select Previous day beside the date. Yesterday then shows the last workday before that day.
What's Next?
- Viewing the Daily Room Schedule — See the day's booked cases in every room
- Room Analytics Dashboard — Turnover, first-case starts and room use over longer periods
- Managing Your Settings and Preferences — Pause or delete a report email in Report Subscriptions
- Intro to Rooms Monitoring — The room and unit status tools for administrators
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.