Mean operating room times differ by 50% among hospitals in different countries for laparoscopic cholecystectomy and lung lobectomy

We explored whether there were large differences in operating room (OR) times for two common procedures performed by multiple surgeons at each of several hospitals thousands of miles apart. Mean OR time, “wheels in” to “wheels out,” for ten consecutive cases of each of laparoscopic cholecystectomy and lung lobectomy were obtained for each of ten hospitals in eight countries from their OR logs. After log transformation, the OR times were analyzed by analysis of variance. Mean OR times differed significantly among hospitals (P = 0.006, laparoscopic cholecystectomy; P < 0.001, lung lobectomy). The second longest average OR time was 50% longer than the second shortest average OR time for both laparoscopic cholecystectomy and lung lobectomy. Differences in OR times among the hospitals we studied were large enough to affect the productivity of OR nurses and anesthesia providers. Thus, international benchmarking studies to understand differences in OR times worldwide may be beneficial. Franklin-Dexter@Ulowa.edu; www.FranklinDexter.net Financial disclosure. F. Dexter is Director of the Division of Management Consulting. He receives no funds personally other than his salary from the State of Iowa, including no travel expenses or honorarium, and has tenure with no incentive program. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Glycaemic index of three Indian rice varieties

Three commonly consumed Indian rice varieties (Sona Masuri, Ponni and Surti Kolam) were tested for their glycaemic index (GI). Healthy volunteers were recruited and after an overnight fast were given a 50 g available carbohydrate portion of glucose (reference food) or different varieties of cooked rice (test foods) on separate occasions. The fasting as well as postprandial capillary blood glucose response was determined over 2 h, and the incremental area under the curve (IAUC) was calculated. The GI was calculated as the IAUC of the test food/IAUC of the reference food (glucose) × 100. The differences between the GI values for Sona Masuri (72.0 ± 4.5), Ponni (70.2 ± 3.6) and Surti Kolam (77.0 ± 4.0) rice varieties were non-significant (p = 0.606) and are all classified as high GI varieties of rice. There is an urgent need to study the GI of other commonly consumed rice varieties and to develop rice of a lower GI value.