UCHealth Improves Operating Room Efficiency with LeanTaaS

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Oct. 24, 2017 - PRLog -- UCHealth Improves Operating Room Efficiency, Lowering Wait Times and Improving Patient Experience, with LeanTaaS

LeanTaaS, Inc., a Silicon Valley innovator of software solutions that increase patient access and improve operational performance for healthcare providers, today shared results from UCHealth's first year of implementing the company's iQueue for Operating Rooms. In the first full year of use, UCHealth experienced dramatic improvements in operating room (OR) utilization and increased revenue by $10 million across UCHealth's University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) ORs.

LeanTaaS uses predictive analytics and lean principles to help health systems dramatically increase the utilization of expensive assets such as operating rooms, infusion chairs and inpatient beds. By boosting the utilization of these assets, hospitals improve both revenue and patient access and significantly enhance the quality of the patient experience by decreasing the likelihood of patients experiencing a delay on the day of their procedure.

UCHealth deployed the iQueue for Operating Rooms Mobile Block Exchange (MBE) and Smart Performance Tracker (SPT) modules throughout 25 inpatient and eight outpatient ORs at UCH, its academic anchor in metro Denver located on the Anschutz Medical Campus. After seeing the positive impact those two modules had on utilization, UCHealth extended the use of the solution to its other community hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. iQueue for Operating Rooms' modular approach allows healthcare providers the flexibility to deploy modules individually or in any combination.

With access to data-driven performance metrics through the iQueue for Operating Rooms SPT module, UCHealth's OR managers get a 360-degree view of OR metrics without spending hours — if not days — retrieving data from disparate sources for reports that don't always get read. With SPT's easy-to-use web and mobile dashboard, UCHealth administrators have been able to identify which surgeons and service lines are using their allocated blocks optimally and which could benefit from an objective conversation about their performance. As a result, UCHealth has experienced a 4 percent increase in OR utilization and estimates $400,000 increased revenue per operating room per year.

"We look at ROI from two angles: expense and revenue," said Tom Gronow, chief operating officer at UCHealth. "From the revenue side, deploying iQueue for Operating Rooms has given us the opportunity to schedule more cases in a finite space, whether that be our physical operating rooms or surgical blocks. On the expense side, it has allowed us to have a more predictable life for our surgeons, staff and, more importantly, for our patients so that they're not bumped or delayed.

"We've also been able to be more predictive and responsive based on caseload. That has helped us not only in terms of overtime but also in making sure our staff are utilized as effectively as possible."

LeanTaaS CEO Mohan Giridharadas commented, "iQueue's strong mathematical foundation helps health systems treat more patients, reduce the time patients spend waiting for appointments, relieve staff stress and shrink healthcare delivery costs."

The iQueue for Operating Rooms MBE module features an OpenTable-like interface that makes it easy and convenient for surgeons to release OR time previously allocated to them — commonly called blocks — when they know they won't require it and to request additional blocks when the needs arise. The web browser-based module can be accessed from any mobile device, laptop or desktop computer.

UCHealth staff worked closely with the LeanTaaS team to solicit surgeon participation through introductory meetings, promotional material in the surgeon lounge and individual outreach. Those efforts yielded a 47 percent increase in the median number of blocks released each month. And, surgeons released their blocks 10 percent earlier than with the previous approach, which consisted of multiple phone calls, emails and faxes.

About UCHealth

UCHealth is an innovative, nonprofit health system that delivers the highest quality medical care with an excellent patient experience. UCHealth (http://www.uchealth.org/) combines Longs Peak Hospital, Memorial Hospital, Poudre Valley Hospital, Medical Center of the Rockies, UCHealth Medical Group, Broomfield Hospital, Grandview Hospital, Yampa Valley Medical Center and University of Colorado Hospital into an organization dedicated to health and providing unmatched patient care in the Rocky Mountain West. With more than 100 clinic locations, UCHealth pushes the boundaries of medicine, providing advanced treatments and clinical trials and improving health through innovation.

About LeanTaaS

LeanTaaS uses lean principles and predictive analytics to mathematically match the demand for expensive, constrained healthcare resources — operating rooms, infusion chairs, imaging assets, etc. — with supply. More than 40 providers across the nation rely on LeanTaaS's iQueue cloud-based platform to increase patient access, decrease wait times and reduce healthcare delivery costs. LeanTaaS is based in Santa Clara, California.  For more information about LeanTaaS, please visit www.leantaas.com. To get breaking LeanTaaS news, follow the company on Twitter @LeanTaaS, Facebook at www (dot) facebook (dot) com/LeanTaaS and LinkedIn at www (dot) linkedin (dot) com/company/leantaas.

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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, UCHealth, operating rooms, healthcare, predictive analytics, lean principles, diagnostic imaging, infusion centers, cancer centers, machine learning, hospitals, data science