MultiCare Health System completes 3,200 more surgical cases in one year with 42% boost in case volume via AI-powered OR optimization

MultiCare faced manual, time-consuming surgical block management that relied on retrospective data. As the system grew through acquisitions, operational fragmentation created siloed operations with disparate processes and competing metrics. This led to imbalanced OR utilization — some facilities were overutilized while others had empty rooms — with inconsistent scheduling and no cross-facility visibility. Cultural barriers included unsuccessful top-down mandates, limited physician engagement, and incentives that rewarded individual facility results over system goals.

MultiCare implemented LeanTaaS iQueue for Operating Rooms, integrating with their Epic EHR to provide real-time utilization data. After strong initial results, they expanded system-wide in 2021, creating a data-driven 'systemness' approach with standardized metrics and a replicable playbook. The platform enabled physician-led governance, cross-facility collaboration forums, and on-demand metrics for leadership, transforming fragmented operations into a connected network while preserving local facility flexibility.

Over four years since the 2021 system-wide expansion, MultiCare achieved a 14% improvement in prime time utilization, a 42% boost in case volume, and a 25% increase in staffed room utilization. In a single year, the system completed 3,200 more surgical cases. The initial implementation alone delivered a 35% decrease in unused blocks, 15.2% increase in case volume, and 12.4% improvement in prime-time utilization.

• System-wide standardization with a data-driven playbook can break down siloed operations across a multi-hospital network while preserving local flexibility.
• Physician-led governance and simplified data sharing are critical to driving surgeon engagement and sustaining OR optimization gains.
• Real-time EHR-integrated utilization data replaces retrospective reporting and enables ongoing, compounding performance improvements over multiple years.