ABSTRACT
This chapter considers hospital surgical services as the basis of the discussion, these recommendations, tools, and blocking and tackling steps can and should apply well to outpatient surgery centers. The optimization of surgical capacity is one of the few topics that will always light up the eyes of the C-Suite executives. As a convenience to surgeons, hospitals, and schedulers on both ends of the phone, "blocks" of time on the surgical schedule were developed and given to surgeons. Block schedules have become very common as a means to help surgeons avoid the chaos of scheduling cases each week, lend regularity and consistency in the days and hours of work at a given facility. There is a number of blocking practices within hospitals across the country that influence how well block time is utilized. More importantly, without an "official" block schedule, management, oversight, and governance are more difficult, leading to the block abuse.
