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.
“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.
“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.
About LeanTaaS
LeanTaaS provides software solutions that combine lean principles, predictive analytics, and machine learning to transform hospital operating room and infusion center operations. Approximately 100 health systems across the nation rely on the company’s iQueue cloud-based solutions to increase patient access, decrease wait times, reduce healthcare delivery costs, and improve revenue. LeanTaaS is based in Santa Clara, California, and Charlotte, North Carolina. For more information about LeanTaaS, please visit https://leantaas.com/, and connect on Twitter/LeanTaaS, Facebook/LeanTaaS and LinkedIn/LeanTaaS.
About Novant Health
Novant Health is an integrated network of physician clinics, outpatient facilities and hospitals that delivers a seamless and convenient healthcare experience to communities in Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. The Novant Health network consists of more than 1,600 physicians and over 29,000 employees that provide care at nearly 700 locations, including 15 hospitals and hundreds of outpatient facilities and physician clinics. In 2020, Novant Health was the only healthcare system in North Carolina to be included on Forbes’ Best Employers for Diversity list. Diversity MBA Magazine has also ranked Novant Health third on its 2019 list of “Best Places for Women & Diverse Managers to Work.” Novant Health provided more than $993.2 million in community benefit, including financial assistance and services, in 2019. For more information, please visit our website at NovantHealth.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
LeanTaaS and iQueue are trademarks of LeanTaaS. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Tags: LeanTaaS, iQueue, healthcare, Novant Health, predictive analytics, operating rooms, COVID-19, elective surgery, machine learning, hospitals, data science, data analytics, big data, lean principles
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