Gundersen Health System Boosts OR Prime Time Utilization 8% and Robot Room Utilization 14% with AI Scheduling

Amid staffing challenges in 2022, Gundersen's perioperative department faced OR capacity problems due to lack of real-time data visibility. Surgeons and leaders could not assess true block time usage or identify releasable time, leading to severely limited open time for elective cases. Surgeons were reluctant to release block time manually, autorelease deadlines were too short, and scheduling required frequent back-and-forth phone calls and faxes with no audit trail.

Gundersen launched LeanTaaS's AI-based iQueue for Operating Rooms in May 2022. The Analyze module created a single source of truth with weekly surgeon notifications and monthly leadership reports. The Collect and Allocate modules identified 'Collectable' unused time and provided right-sizing recommendations based on historic usage. The platform also sent release reminders to surgeons and offered an open marketplace for time exchange, streamlining scheduling and enabling automatic tracking of all OR transactions.

By October 2022, Gundersen achieved an 8% increase in both prime time utilization and block utilization, a 14% increase in prime time robot utilization, and a 76% increase in manually released minutes. Existing staff were empowered to achieve more with limited resources, and scheduling efficiency improved significantly across 23 ORs spanning 7 hospitals.

• Real-time data visibility is a prerequisite for behavior change: surgeons only released block time once they could see accurate utilization data and had easy tools to act on it.
• Right-sizing block allocation based on historical usage, rather than perceived need, unlocks significant hidden OR capacity.
• An open marketplace for time exchange combined with automated reminders reduces the friction that causes block hoarding and scheduling inefficiency.