Inova Health System serves Northern Virginia through hospitals, outpatient centers, and specialty practices, supported by more than 6,700 nurses. After years of growth with iQueue for Infusion Centers, Inova partnered with LeanTaaS to adopt Nurse Pull patient assignment, sustain access during staffing constraints, and create a more manageable nursing workflow.
111 chairs (currently live on iQueue)
5 centers across Northern Virginia
Epic EHR
After using iQueue for Infusion Centers to support substantial growth in patient volume and completed patient hours, Inova faced an acute staffing challenge that put those gains under pressure. Their main infusion center needed to preserve patient access with five to eight fewer nurses than usual without compromising safety or overloading the remaining team. Its pre-assignment model made that harder: nurses arrived 30-45 minutes early to review charts, stayed late to document care, and had little flexibility when reactions, high-acuity patients, or same-day add-ons disrupted the schedule. Moving to real-time assignment also raised understandable concerns among experienced oncology nurses accustomed to knowing their patients before the day began.
Inova worked with LeanTaaS to implement iQueue’s Nurse Pull real-time patient assignment. Instead of relying on fixed pre-assignments, nurses pull the next ready patient when they have capacity, allowing work to shift as patient needs change. The team paired Nurse Pull with 30-minute touch-time templates and used shared governance to let nurses shape the rollout. During the first two weeks, new starts and more complex patients remained pre-assigned while staff built confidence. Leaders gathered feedback, adjusted the workflow, and kept the change focused on nurse well-being. LeanTaaS supported staff education, onsite go-live troubleshooting, and continued refinement. The new model allows a nurse to stay with a patient experiencing a reaction while another nurse keeps care moving. Through the rollout, Inova sustained high chair utilization and patient volume with fewer nurses, kept wait times low for patients, and improved both workload balance and nurse experience.
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