Preference Card Optimization Study Reveals Savings Over $3.7 Million
Researchers at UC San Diego studied five years of preference card optimization across a multi-hospital health system and found over $3.7 million in savings — with a 31.1% reduction in unused item costs and fewer mid-surgery add-ons.
Overview
The operating room is one of the most expensive and chaotic parts of a healthcare organization. Inefficiencies in the systems used at these facilities can lead to avoidable expenses. Researchers studying the impact of preference card optimization at the University of California, San Diego, recently published a study that revealed savings of over $3,700,000 in a multi-hospital health system. These savings stemmed from a reduction in unused items, total cost per card, and items requested mid-surgery.
Preference cards catalog the supplies needed for a surgery and are used by staff to stock the room with the necessary surgical supplies. Inaccuracies in these cards can cause items to be overpicked, not picked at all, and thrown away. When items are needed but are absent from the card, OR staff must leave the room to retrieve them, causing potential for case delays that snowball throughout the day.
Methodology
The study, which spanned five years, aimed to discover how much money can be saved by optimizing surgical preference cards. Researchers analyzed:
- The number of items to be opened on the card
- Historical item quantity data
- Timestamps for each procedure
The study was implemented across three surgical service departments — colorectal, oncology, and urology — using three optimization methods:
- Surgical preference cards alone
- Procedure identification cards alone
- Unique surgical preference card-procedure combinations
Pre-Test Baseline
Before implementing optimization, the mean cost per case for unused items was $1,294, which over five months amounted to $3,716,251 in total costs. All three methods of optimization reduced this number, but the greatest result was a 31.1% decrease in unused items cost — savings of $1,157,443.65.
Results
Total cost per card: The average total cost per card dropped from $4,138.29 to $3,812.84 — approximately 8% savings per case on average. The lowest recorded result was $2,882.77, a 30% decrease, suggesting that many unoptimized preference cards carry unnecessary items that either go unused or are discarded at the end of surgery.
Mid-surgery add-ons: Before optimization, an average of 32.4 items were ordered mid-surgery per case because they were absent from the preference card. After optimization, that average dropped to 23.8 items — meaning surgical staff spent less time retrieving supplies and more time focused on patient care. Fewer mid-surgery interruptions also reduce case delays, which compound into higher labor costs across a full OR schedule.
What This Means for Your Facility
The results of this study highlight what is possible when surgical preference cards are actively managed using data rather than manual updates or periodic reviews. PREFcards brings these evidence-backed benefits into everyday operating room workflows by digitizing and continuously optimizing preference cards in real time.
By reducing unused supplies, minimizing missing items, and lowering overall card costs, PREFcards helps hospitals translate the type of savings demonstrated in this study into scalable, system-wide improvements.
Book a demo to see how PREFcards can help your facility achieve measurable preference card savings.
Source
Perez, S., Mancebo, A., Lopez, P., Joe, L., Benavidez, P., Li, Z., Sadri, M., Spiegel-Pinzon, E., Lopez, R., Clary, B., Longhurst, C. A., Mekeel, K., & Singh, K. (2026). Data and the art of surgical preference card maintenance. JAMA Surgery, 161(1), 76. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamasurg.2025.5179