MultiCare Health System is a not-for-profit healthcare organization operating 13 hospitals across Washington state with over 100 operating rooms and 2,400 licensed beds performing nearly 100,000 surgical procedures annually. MultiCare focuses on four strategic priorities: people, process, performance, and partnership.
104 operating rooms
13 hospitals across Washington state
Epic EHR
Not-for-profit healthcare system
2,413 licensed beds
93,157 surgeries annually (2024)
MultiCare's journey with LeanTaaS began when they faced challenges with 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 operating room (OR) utilization – some facilities were overutilized while others had empty rooms. Scheduling was inconsistent, and the system lacked cross-facility visibility. Cultural barriers included unsuccessful top-down mandates, limited physician engagement, and incentives that rewarded individual facility results over system goals. The COVID-19 pandemic added unprecedented challenges to their improvement efforts.
MultiCare implemented iQueue for Operating Rooms, integrating with their Epic® EHR to provide real-time utilization data. The initial implementation delivered impressive results: 35% decrease in unused blocks, 15.2% increase in case volume, and 12.4% improvement in prime-time utilization.
During the pandemic, iQueue helped MultiCare manage canceled elective surgeries. In 2021, they expanded system-wide, creating a data-driven "systemness" approach with standardized metrics and a replicable playbook.
Benefits included improved OR access, increased surgeon engagement through simplified data sharing, efficient block management, and on-demand metrics for leadership. By establishing physician-led governance and forums for collaboration, MultiCare maintained local flexibility while enabling cross-facility coordination.
Their approach transformed fragmented operations into a connected network while preserving each facility's strengths. Continued optimization has yielded even more impressive results over the four years since the 2021 expansion: 25% increase in staffed room utilization, 14% improvement in prime time utilization, and 42% boost in case volume. In one single year, MultiCare saw 3,200 more surgical cases completed.
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