8.8x ROI: How Lee Health Transformed OR Utilization Without Building New Rooms

Speakers

Woman with curly brown hair and glasses, wearing a white blazer over a blue top, smiling in front of a neutral background—perfect for representing innovation in surgical workflow.
Lis Digneo, MHA, RN,
System Director Outpatient Surgical Services, Lee Health

Summary

Surgical access is often seen as a scheduling challenge — but at scale, it is a strategic growth lever. At Lee Health, fragmented systems, rigid block schedules, and manual coordination created the illusion of constrained capacity, even when usable OR time existed across the enterprise. Rather than expanding its physical footprint, the organization redefined its approach by treating OR access as a shared, enterprise-wide asset and aligning teams around a unified operating model.

In this session, Lis Digneo shares how Lee Health evolved from reactive, siloed workflows to a coordinated system built on visibility, governance, and automation. By establishing data transparency, surgeon accountability, and structured decision-making, the organization drove measurable behavior change, resulting in +11% case volume, +6% block utilization, -20% unused block minutes, and 8.8x ROI. Attendees will gain practical insights into building trust in data, structuring effective governance, and sequencing automation to scale impact — demonstrating how health systems can grow by orchestrating existing surgical capacity rather than adding more.

Learning Objectives

  • Understand the role of governance and accountability in driving sustained behavior change beyond dashboards
  • Identify common barriers to OR utilization, including fragmentation, rigidity, and manual coordination
  • Learn how to build a foundation of credible, shared data with AI to align surgeons, schedulers, and leadership
  • Apply practical strategies to unlock existing capacity, increase utilization, and drive ROI without expanding infrastructure

Results

3%Increase in prime time utilization 
9%Increase in staffed room utilization
7%Increase in surgical volume

Related resources

Lexington Medical Center logo featuring a green abstract design on the left and "Lexington Medical Center" in bold black text on the right.
Operating Rooms
Unlocking Your ORs' Potential: Lexington Medical Center Deploys Data-Driven Strategies for Maximizing Efficiency, Easing Staff Challenges, and Achieving a 6% Increase in Block Utilization
Ochsner Health logo featuring a stylized human figure with a yellow circle, and text reading "Ochsner Health System" in blue letters.
Operating Rooms
Transforming Surgical Services: Ochsner Health's Strategies for Enhancing Surgeon Engagement and Optimizing Block Time & Robotic Efficiency to Drive 10% Increase in Robot Utilization
CommonSpirit logo with gray text and a stylized purple cross symbol on the upper right, reflecting its connection to Dignity Health.
Enterprise Health Operating Rooms
Transforming Perioperative Performance: CommonSpirit Health Unites AI, Automation, and Change Management to Deliver a $40M ROI
Baylor Scott & White Health logo featuring a blue and teal cross symbol on the left and the organization’s name in blue and gold text on the right, representing excellence in healthcare solutions like OR utilization with iQueue.
Operating Rooms
How One Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Facility Helped Make Timely and Confident Strategic Decisions to Improve OR Block Utilization by 30%
University of Kansas Health System logo
Operating Rooms
Critical Components of OR Performance: How The University of Kansas Health System Built Stakeholder Engagement with Credible Data to Increase Block Utilization by 11%
The image shows the “UT Medical” logo, highlighting “UT” in orange and “MEDICAL” in bold black, representing their OR utilization strategy on a light gray background.
Operating Rooms
8% Surgical Volume Growth Without Adding ORs: UT Medical Center's Data-Driven OR Access Transformation
Oregon Health and Sciences University logo
Operating Rooms
50%+ Reduction in Late Cancellations: How OHSU Scaled Coordinated Case Planning to Prepare Patients Earlier
LeanTaaS logo - Home
Operating Rooms
Running the Modern Operating Room: The Future of Perioperative Coordination Starts with Operational Intelligence
Lee Health logo with a blue and green leaf design on the left, and "LEE HEALTH" in blue and green text on the right, representing innovation in patient care and surgical workflow.
Operating Rooms
Orchestrating Surgical Performance: How Lee Health Aligns Leadership, Schedulers, and Surgeons
Logo for Orthopedic + Fracture Specialists with the tagline "Put Your Life in Motion" displayed below the name, reflecting a commitment to surgical scheduling efficiency improvement.
Operating Rooms Surgical Clinics
From Backlog to Booked: Accelerating Case Velocity

Ready to get started?

Take the first step towards unlocking capacity, generating ROI, and increasing patient access.

Click to access the login or register cheese