Hartford HealthCare's St. Vincent's Medical Center boosts OR prime time utilization 7% and releases 124% more block minutes with LeanTaaS iQueue

St. Vincent's Medical Center's OR schedule was 99% blocked, with surgeons routinely failing to release unused block time due to fear of not reclaiming it later. Open time was informally held via sticky notes and frequently went unused. Schedulers and surgeons lacked visibility into available OR time, forcing constant phone and fax communication. Leadership had no reliable, trusted data source, making it impossible to set appropriate auto-release deadlines or optimize block allocation.

SVMC implemented LeanTaaS iQueue for Operating Rooms in August 2022. The platform provided full visibility into open and blocked OR time through a unified scheduling marketplace (Exchange and Case Scheduling modules), allowing clinic schedulers to view and request time directly. The Collect and Allocate module gave surgical leaders accurate, surgeon-centric data to evaluate block repurposing. Automated release reminders encouraged surgeons to free unused time, and the Analyze module supported data-driven decisions on extending auto-release deadlines.

Prime time utilization increased by 7% and staffed room utilization rose 5% following iQueue deployment. Block utilization improved by 6%, and manually-released minutes surged 124%, reflecting a cultural shift toward proactive block time release. The organization moved from a 99%-blocked OR schedule to a fluid, open marketplace for OR time with a single trusted data source.

• Surgeon behavior around block time hoarding can be changed when reliable data and release reminder tools remove the fear of losing access.
• A unified scheduling platform that serves both schedulers and leadership eliminates the manual back-and-forth that drives inefficiency and data distrust.
• Accurate, surgeon-level utilization metrics enable leadership to make defensible, data-driven decisions on block allocation and auto-release deadlines.