Novant Health Builds a Solid Foundation for Optimized Operating Room Capacity With Help From LeanTaaS

North Carolina-Based Health System Deploys Data-Driven iQueue Platform to Bring 139 ORs Online Across 23 Locations Amid the COVID-19 Crisis 

LeanTaaS, Inc., a healthcare analytics software company delivering solutions that improve patients’ access to care, today announced that Novant Health has successfully deployed iQueue for Operating Rooms across Novant Health’s North Carolina surgical locations. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, LeanTaaS and Novant Health implementation teams collaborated remotely to bring 139 operating rooms across 23 locations online and to train 1,300 surgeons, clinic team members, operating room leadership and operating room schedulers on the application in just four weeks. Historically, hospital software implementations across multiple locations take six months or more.

Novant Health selected iQueue for Operating Rooms to not only assist in the recovery of elective surgery volume post COVID-19 but, more importantly, to also provide greater visibility and transparency into operating room performance metrics needed to optimize the use of operating room time across its surgical locations.

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“We are excited to utilize iQueue for our operating rooms because it gives us access to data that we previously did not have,” said Leslie Barrett, president and chief operating officer of Novant Health Medical Park Hospital, and Novant Health’s system vice president of surgical and anesthesia services. “iQueue enables us to have a better understanding of our true capacity and where we have opportunities to optimize our operating room utilization.”

LeanTaaS began data onboarding, implementation and training at Novant Health in April and launched the platform remotely by the end of May. The platform’s success was notable:

• Within three days of launching, 34% of participating surgeons, clinics and surgical team members actively used the system to release block time, request open time for elective cases, and gain greater visibility into their historical operating room metrics.
• Within four days of launching, surgeons and clinics made 225 requests for 25,000 operating room minutes outside of block time — time which might have historically gone unused because the surgeons might not have known it was available.
• Surgeons released 102 blocks, which equates to 27,000 operating room minutes for other surgeons to access and use.
• Surgeons set 71 “availability alerts” which translates into pent-up demand for operating room time that is not yet available. The releasing, requesting and monitoring of time all occurred without multiple phone calls between operating room scheduling, surgeons, patients and clinics.

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“At Novant Health, we’re committed to leveraging technology to make the healthcare experience easier for our patients and partners,” said Jason Bernd, president of Novant Health Charlotte Orthopedic Hospital. “Our physician partners and their offices are excited that this technology helps make finding venues to care for their patients simpler and more streamlined.”

In addition to opening up time in the operating rooms and increasing visibility into available time, Novant Health leadership gained insight into the demands for operating room time through previously inaccessible metrics such as the percentage of time filled versus the percentage of time that was released and the percentage of time requested.

“Novant Health’s advocacy for iQueue for Operating Rooms, from the beginning of the contracting phase through the implementation, led to a speedy and successful launch in just four weeks’ time under some of the most challenging circumstances healthcare has seen,” said Ashley Walsh, senior director, client services for LeanTaaS.

iQueue for Operating Rooms is a lightweight, cloud-based SaaS solution that digitally transforms core operational processes in operating rooms using predictive analytics and machine learning. The solution unlocks operating room capacity so more cases can be performed in the same number of operating rooms without extending business hours:

• Increase access – Find time for surgeons wanting more OR access.
• Right-size blocks – Collect and make available the right set of underutilized blocks to surgeons needing more time or to attract new surgeons.
• Engage surgeons with credible performance metrics – Create a “single source of truth” using current, objective and credible reporting easily accessed through either mobile or desktop browser.

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