Hospitals nationwide are grappling with high patient volumes, staffing shortages and inefficient capacity management — all while being asked to deliver timely, high-quality care.
During a recent webinar hosted by Becker’s Hospital Review and LeanTaaS, leaders from Aurora, Colo.-based UCHealth shared how they transformed their approach to patient flow and capacity management using organizational structure, data-driven tools and systemwide discipline. This AI-enabled transformation of patient flow translated into more than 1,700 additional patients receiving hospital-based care without increasing bed capacity or staffing needs.
Speakers included Jamie Nordhagen, senior director of clinical operations and patient flow at UCHealth, and Darlene Tad-y, MD, MBA, SFHM, associate chief medical officer for patient flow at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital.
Here are four key takeaways from the conversation:
Note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
- A chaotic status quo demanded change
Several years ago, UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital was routinely operating over capacity, issuing multiple “code yellow” events each week. These alerts, triggered when hospital occupancy surpassed 100%, underscored a troubling lack of visibility and coordination across the enterprise.
“We were constantly jeopardizing care access, and we did not have tools at our fingertips to make decisions in real time,” Ms. Nordhagen said.
This bottleneck not only undermined care access but strained staff and delayed transitions to appropriate post-acute settings. A fragmented system of communication and siloed workflows left front-line teams without the situational awareness to adapt.
- UCHealth built a systemwide structure for accountability and alignment
To break the cycle, UCHealth launched a comprehensive redesign anchored in standard work, geographic cohorting and multidisciplinary leadership. A pivotal step was establishing an associate chief medical officer role focused solely on patient flow and embedding triage clinicians in the transfer center to guide admissions based on both capacity and clinical appropriateness.
The system also created unit-based medical and nursing director dyads and engaged leaders in daily operations through standardized patient flow huddles and escalation protocols.
- Predictive tools and AI became critical for proactive planning
A game-changing move was the implementation of predictive analytics through LeanTaaS’ iQueue for Inpatient Flow to support daily decision-making. UCHealth now uses this capacity management tool integrated into its virtual huddle environment, which forecasts discharges, identifies bottlenecks and automates surge protocols.
“The tool helps us look ahead,” Dr. Tad-y said, emphasizing that this allows clinicians to level-up and focus on higher value work. “Our teams now understand why we’re asking them to do hard things, and that transparency has decreased conflict and chaos.”
- Outcomes include faster throughput, more access and stronger team confidence
Since launching the initiative, UCHealth has reduced time to admit by 16%, improved ICU transfer times (a 65% reduction in time to complete) and decreased the census of patients with 30-plus-day stays. In total, the system was able to “create” 40 additional inpatient beds simply by shaving half a day off average length of stay — without expanding physical capacity.
That translated into more than 1,700 patients receiving care over a 12-month period.
Just as important, the culture shifted. “We saw a 90% increase in front-line confidence in critical capacity decision-making,” Dr. Tad-y said. “It really improved trust within our teams.”
