Optimizing OR Utilization with Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics: A Case Study

For most hospitals and health systems, operating rooms are their economic engine. However, OR utilization is often constrained by:

• Inefficient processes (e.g. block allocation, creating and finding open time)
• Deep-rooted cultures and a “scarcity mindset”
• An emphasis on metrics that don’t have a significant impact on OR utilization (on time starts, turnover times, block utilization)
• A lack of tools that go beyond the standard capabilities EHRs can provide to increase access, accountability and transparency.

It is frustrating for hospital leaders to base very expensive decisions on anecdotal or inaccurate OR utilization information. For example: do you really need to build a new OR? Do you need to add an additional robot? It is also stressful to have difficult conversations with surgeons about block utilization, particularly when the surgeons have options to take their cases elsewhere. These issues continue to persist, despite best efforts around performance improvement.

So how can hospitals move past these constraints and efficiently make better decisions?

Join Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville’s President, and Baptist Health’s Principal Consultant for Operational Performance Improvement, to hear about their journey toward perioperative operational excellence. Learn how the health system is breaking through these historical barriers by adopting predictive and prescriptive analytics tools that have improved data transparency and decision making and have filled valuable time during the day that had previously gone unused, particularly during the unpredictable waves of the pandemic. During this presentation, the speakers will:

1. Explain why, even after a significant EHR investment, hospitals still need to invest in data management systems, particularly for the operating room.
2. Describe the benefits of adopting a culture of data transparency in perioperative analytics.
3. Discover how Baptist Health’s adoption of predictive and prescriptive operational analytics increased OR prime time utilization by 16% and the number of case minutes completed during prime time by 9% (despite COVID-19 impact on volume) across the health system. Additionally, it increased robot utilization by 45% at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville’s Main OR.

Sara Hubbard
Principal Consultant, Operational Performance Improvement
Baptist Health, Jacksonville

Sara Hubbard is senior operational performance improvement consultant for Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Fla. Prior to joining Baptist Health in 2015, Sara worked for several fortune 200 companies, including Pfizer, Whirlpool and CMS Energy, as well as a smaller healthcare organization. Sara has over 20 years of experience in performance improvement and organizational effectiveness, for which she has led large-scale performance improvement projects, built the capacity and capability of the organization and its employees, and implemented key programs to instill a culture of excellence.

Nicole B. Thomas
Hospital President
Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville

Nicole Thomas, FACHE, is hospital president of Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, responsible for the operational and strategic direction of the largest hospital in the health system. Thomas joined Baptist Health in 2011 and in 2016 was named Baptist Medical Center South’s president, becoming the first female and first African American to lead a hospital in Baptist Health’s history.

Through the years, Thomas has held several system roles at Baptist Health, including co-chairing its diversity, equity and inclusion council; chairing its transformation council; stepping in as interim chief human resources officer; and serving as senior vice president of specialty services overseeing neurosciences, orthopedics and oncology, with primary executive responsibility for the formation of Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2015. Prior to joining Baptist, she was assistant vice president of Physician Operations for St. Luke's Episcopal Health System in Houston and operations administrator at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville.

LeanTaaS delivers software that optimizes use of expensive, constrained healthcare resources. Our OR solution creates a credible, fair and transparent system for managing Block and Open time while maximizing staff, equipment, and capital utilization. The results: revenue increase of $500K per OR per year; higher surgeon, patient and staff satisfaction; increased primetime utilization.