Melanie Burgess, vice president of perioperative services and executive director of the Center for Perioperative Medicine at University of Tennessee Medical Center (UT Medical Center), helps oversee surgical operations at a 740-bed Level I trauma center in Knoxville. The organization performs nearly 29,000 surgeries annually in 36 main operating rooms while also supporting a day surgery center, endoscopy center and cath lab.
In this Q&A, Ms. Burgess explains how UT Medical Center replaced fragmented scheduling workflows with transparent, data-driven OR access, approving 9,500 hours of open-time requests, gaining more than 1,000 hours through block releases and increasing surgical case volume 8% in two years without adding ORs. She will share the full story during the upcoming Transform Perioperative Operations Virtual Summit on September 23, 2026, from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. CT. Her session begins at 11:00 a.m. CT.
Question: What made improving OR access so urgent for UT Medical Center?
Melanie Burgess: We were experiencing significant surgical growth in the same footprint we had always had. We had not built new operating rooms recently, and we were not planning to add any in the immediate future. That made the utilization of our existing time critical. If we wanted to keep growing, we had to make available capacity easier to see and easier to use.
The opportunity was there. We believed we could accommodate more procedures, but our scheduling process was not efficient, streamlined or sufficiently data-driven to help us act on that capacity.
Question: What barriers prevented UT Medical Center from making better use of its existing capacity?
Melanie Burgess: Our workflows were highly fragmented. Surgeon offices sent spreadsheets, waited on hold for our small scheduling staff, used workarounds or tracked down a scheduling coordinator in the hallway. Offices could not easily see what time was truly available. Sometimes they saw an opening, but there were parameters that prevented us from using it.
Our schedule was also heavily blocked, which made it difficult to match available OR time with changing surgical demand. We had some utilization data, but much of it was manually produced, so stakeholders did not consistently trust it. As a result, block and release decisions could depend on political influence, the loudest voice or the strongest case presented at OR committee. We needed a more objective foundation for making decisions.
Question: What capabilities did you need from a new scheduling approach?
Melanie Burgess: We implemented Oracle Cerner SurgiNet in 2024 for perioperative and anesthesia workflows. However, its scheduling tools were not conducive to the volume, variety and special requirements of the offices scheduling procedures across our ORs and procedural rooms.
We needed real-time visibility into available OR time and a simpler, more consistent process that our small team of surgery schedulers could manage. We also needed credible data that could support more productive conversations about block utilization, releases and access to capacity.
Question: How did the new approach modernize scheduling for surgeon offices and your internal team?
Melanie Burgess: We partnered with LeanTaaS to implement iQueue for Operating Rooms alongside our new EMR module, and we required all scheduling requests to flow through the system. That replaced the mix of spreadsheets, phone calls and informal workarounds with one consistent process.
Surgeon offices gained a clearer way to identify and request open time, while our scheduling team gained better visibility into demand and available capacity. Instead of spending time reconciling requests arriving through multiple channels, the team could manage access through a more streamlined and transparent workflow.
Question: How did greater visibility change the way UT Medical Center managed and redistributed OR time?
Melanie Burgess: The new process made available time actionable. Surgeons could more easily release time they knew they would not use, allowing it to become available to other surgeons as quickly as possible.
Greater visibility also helped us direct capacity toward areas with the greatest need rather than allowing time to go unused or be allocated based on who asked first. Having more credible, transparent data gave us a stronger basis for conversations about block utilization and release decisions.
Question: What results has UT Medical Center achieved, and what do they show about the impact of this work?
Melanie Burgess: Over two years, we approved 9,500 hours of open-time requests despite having a highly blocked schedule and a very low percentage of OR availability. We also gained more than 1,000 hours through block releases. Most importantly, surgical case volume increased 8% during that period without adding operating rooms.
For us, the lesson is that visibility can unlock growth. When teams can see what is available, release time promptly and use credible data to guide access decisions, existing OR capacity becomes actionable. That is especially important when physical space is constrained and every hour has to work harder.
Want to hear the full story?
Melanie Burgess will share the full story during Transform Perioperative Operations Virtual Summit on September 23, 2026. Her session begins at 11:00 a.m. CT. Register here.
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