Huntsman Cancer Institute Decreased Average Wait Times by 26% During Peak Hours
Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) is part of the University of Utah Health Care system. HCI is one of 72 elite NCI-designated Cancer Centers in the entire country and one of 33 NCCN Member Institutions, which means it meets the highest standards for cancer care and research and receives support for its scientific endeavors. HCI is […]
Predicting Infusion Staffing with Acuity Metrics: Is “The Juice Worth the Squeeze”?
Accurately predicting infusion staffing needs is crucial to providing optimal care and maintaining high standards of patient safety. Oncology infusion centers face unique staffing challenges, however, as patient acuity and related staffing needs can fluctuate rapidly. To address this challenge, infusion centers often utilize patient acuity measures to inform their staffing predictions. But acuity alone […]
The Ties That Bind: Untangling the Linkage Between Clinics & Infusion
In the world of oncology, matching patient demand to supply can be a challenging task, particularly in the infusion and clinic scheduling process. This complex process involves coordinating not only the infusion and clinic schedules but also other interconnected departments such as lab and radiology. By using historical demand patterns and coupled appointment arrival times, […]
How NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center Used AI to Cut Wait Times by 8% While Allowing for 25% More Same Day Add-On Patients
A busy urban facility, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Adult Infusion Center strove to accommodate volume efficiently while providing a positive experience for its many patients. The center was struggling, however, with extended patient wait times, nurses having to stay past closing time, and an inflexible schedule that did not account for no-show and same […]
How Nebraska Medicine and Rush University Cancer Center Leveraged Advanced Analytics to Optimize Infusion Operations for Up to 10% More Patients Served
Infusion scheduling is a complex problem. Capacity, including nurse resources, is limited and fixed, while patients’ need for appointments is unlimited and variable. The mismatch between nurses and patient loads leads to busy midday “peaks” between 10am and 2pm, causing inconsistent nurse workloads, missed lunch breaks and a higher risk of burnout. By instead level loading […]
How Texas Oncology-Presbyterian Cancer Center Dallas Safely Accommodated a 25% Surge in Scheduled Patients After an Unexpected Closure
A 33-chair facility serving the entire metro area, Texas Oncology-Presbyterian Cancer Center Dallas faced a multi-day, unexpected closure due as an ice storm shut down the state for nearly a whole week. These unforeseen circumstances left that week’s worth of vulnerable patients, many needing time-sensitive treatments, needing to be rescheduled as quickly as possible. The […]
What’s challenging cancer centers today? Deep insights from ACCC featuring The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Monument Health Cancer Care Institute
Last year, LeanTaaS joined with the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) to explore nursing directors’ and other operational leaders’ perspectives on the current state of cancer programs and practice operations. The survey’s goal was to assess how AI and other technologies could best improve efficiencies for both patients and staff at infusion centers, given […]
Infusion Capacity Management: How Johns Hopkins Medicine Decreased Drug Wait Time by 13%-32% Year-Over-Year, and University of Kansas Cancer Center Increased Average Daily Volumes by 19%
Why do health systems struggle to efficiently utilize assets? The fundamental problem is one of matching a volatile, unpredictable demand for services with the constrained availability of supply. Backward-facing tools such as dashboards are not adequately equipped to address this supply-demand issue. Infusion centers face these supply-demand challenges on a daily basis. Building out a […]
Expect the unexpected: how to conquer variability in your outpatient infusion center
The last several years have challenged infusion centers in ways never imagined or anticipated. But a constant theme remains since LeanTaaS began working with these centers nearly a decade ago: how can infusion centers better plan for the unexpected to reduce stress and uncertainty? Outpatient infusion centers are challenged with day-to-day uncertainty given the nature […]
How much room is left? Understanding infusion capacity by defining utilization
The capacity at any infusion center is limited by scarce resources such as chairs, nurses, and pharmacy. Once the center has built an optimized infusion scheduling template that accounts for each of these constraints, leadership often asks whether capacity is fully maximized or if there is still room to grow. The key to answering this […]