Many U.S. hospitals are struggling to keep pace with surgical demand. Fragmented scheduling, manual workflows and limited visibility into block utilization can stretch surgical backlogs into multi-month operational challenges that frustrate surgeons, strain staff and constrain growth.
At Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center (PVHMC), a 427-bed nonprofit community hospital serving Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, a paper-based scheduling process had resulted in a two- to three-month surgical backlog. Following the implementation of predictive scheduling, the perioperative team cleared the backlog in 90 days, unified scheduling across the main OR, outpatient pavilion and GI clinics and realized measurable financial ROI within six months.
During a webinar hosted by Becker’s Healthcare, Martha Soto, RN, director of perioperative services at PVHMC, and Maria J. Cortez, RN, nurse manager of surgery at the outpatient pavilion, shared how they partnered with LeanTaaS to transform operations.
Here are four key takeaways from their discussion.
1. A single source of truth
Before implementing LeanTaaS’ iQueue for Operating Rooms, PVHMC ran 10 to 14 ORs on a paper-based system supported by emails, five different fax numbers and hard copies hand-delivered to the pre-admit testing clinic. Schedulers lacked real-time visibility into the day’s caseload, and physicians could not see when block time was available to release.
Centralizing requests, documents and communications in one platform gave every stakeholder the same view of the schedule.
“We are all on the same page, talking the same language and using one system for every service from booking to locating information,” Ms. Cortez said. “If the document is not in iQueue, it just doesn’t exist.”
2. Eliminating backlog and unlocking capacity
Within the first 90 days of go-live, PVHMC eliminated its two- to three-month elective surgical backlog across eight ORs adapted to the new system. The platform surfaced 183 block releases that opened up 61,000 minutes of OR time and the team backfilled 46% of those released minutes with additional cases.
Visibility into open time also changed how surgeons engaged with the schedule. Physicians could see released blocks from their offices in real time and claim capacity that previously would have sat unused.
“That was a really ‘aha’ moment for the physicians. They were able to look at their offices and look at the schedule and see that there was a released room at any given time,” Ms. Soto said. “They were able to see, ‘I got time for that room tomorrow and I can put two or three cases in there.’”
3. ROI and FTE savings within six months
The operational gains translated quickly into financial impact. PVHMC reported a 1.8x ROI in the first six months — roughly $16.52 per OR minute — and recorded a meaningful increase in case volume in the first nine months.
Workforce efficiency improved alongside throughput. The pre-admit testing unit had previously assigned two RNs to finalize OR records for the next day’s cases because chasing missing documents was so time-intensive. With all documentation routed through one platform, the team reduced that staffing to one RN without compromising day-of readiness.
“When we’re short of nurses or have call-offs, we know the workload to prepare our operating room records is not going to be the unknown,” Ms. Cortez said. “We know we’re going to get it done, and we’re going to get it done timely that day.”
4. Building trust and culture
Both leaders emphasized that the most durable change was cultural. Real-time, benchmarked data, delivered to surgeons in monthly report cards covering turnover time, on-time starts and block utilization, replaced months-old retrospective reports and gave physicians confidence in the numbers driving scheduling decisions.
That transparency has also enabled harder conversations about block ownership, with surgeons agreeing to return underutilized time so it can be redistributed to specialties with growing demand, such as orthopedic sports medicine.
“We have enhanced our trust tremendously, not only here at Pomona Valley but with our team from the outside clinics, the surgeons and offices,” Ms. Cortez said. “It’s brought us together as one team.”
For Ms. Soto, the change is personal as much as operational. “In the past, I would lose sleep thinking how many cases were not in the books yet,” she said. “It has brought a lot of peace of mind.”
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