Surgical Residents’ Awareness of the Costs of Common Operating Room Supplies

Background The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education mandates that residency programs incorporate cost awareness into patient care. This presents a challenge for surgical residents because they must understand operating room costs in addition to other expenses. Trainees’ understanding of operating room supply costs is not well understood. Methods A survey was distributed to surgical residents (N = 73) at an urban, university-based residency program. Residents estimated the costs of 21 single-use operating room items. Descriptive statistics and a regression analysis were calculated. Results The response rate was 62%. Respondents accurately estimated costs for a median of 7/21 items, with error ranging from 26% to 5438%. They substantially underestimated the three highest-cost items. Increasing post-graduate year did not improve estimation accuracy (β = .233, P = .138). Discussion Residents have a poor understanding of single-use item costs, and this does not improve with post-graduate training, suggesting inefficiencies. There is opportunity to educate residents and ultimately decrease surgical health care costs.