Leading Indianapolis Health System saves $1M/year and cuts patient moves 63% with AI-powered inpatient flow optimization

A 4-hospital, 760-bed Indianapolis health system faced staffing shortages and limited visibility into patient care needs, resulting in inefficient resource allocation across units. Leaders overprotected resources and limited cross-unit collaboration, while attempting to balance load by moving patients to where staff was located — disrupting care continuity and reducing satisfaction. Reliance on costly bonus pay to fill open shifts was too slow for last-minute openings and was negatively impacting the system's bottom line.

The system deployed LeanTaaS iQueue for Inpatient Flow, which provided real-time, system-wide transparency into patient care needs and staffed bed availability. Nursing leaders gained the visibility needed to allocate core staff to areas of greatest need rather than moving patients. Data-driven insights also enabled more equitable, proactive deployment of bonus pay incentives, reducing reactive spending while improving schedule balance across all service lines.

The health system achieved a 63% reduction in same-level-of-care patient moves, eliminating disruptions to care continuity and improving patient satisfaction. Strategic staff reallocation created 250 days of usable capacity per year, and the reduction in unnecessary patient moves generated $1M in annual savings redirected toward patient care.

• Real-time staffing visibility enables staff to follow patients rather than forcing patients to follow staff, improving both care quality and satisfaction.
• Data-driven decisions on bonus pay deployment reduce costs and improve equity across service lines compared to reactive, manual shift-filling.
• Transparent cross-unit resource sharing breaks down siloed resource-hoarding behavior and improves system-wide collaboration.