Reduce Nurse Burnout in Your Infusion Center
Suboptimal scheduling practices that rely on first-call-first-scheduled and a grid-based approach cause infusion centers to have midday peaks that lead to nurses regularly missing lunches and feeling burnt out.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
LeanTaaS iQueue technology helps infusion centers reduce nurse burnout so they can focus on providing quality patient care by optimizing chair utilization, level-loading appointments and reducing bottlenecks.
Over 300 infusion centers are seeing a 25% improvement in nurse satisfaction, 50% lower overtime hours, 10% improvement in labor costs and 25% reduction in patient wait times while experiencing an annual impact of $15-20K per chair per year.
Resource optimization at UCHealth Cancer Center was failing, leaving nurses to work extended and overtime hours on a regular basis:
After iQueue:
Reduction in overtime hours
“Before, our nurses were burnt out. They rarely had time for breaks—let alone lunch—and were concerned about patient safety in the daily chaos. Now nurses not only get their well-deserved breaks, but feel more comfortable and confident.”
– Executive Director, Oncology Services
Patient volume increases at Huntsman Cancer Institute meant peak time capacity was regularly exceeded, which negatively impacted wait times and nurse satisfaction.
After iQueue:
Days over capacity
“It gives us a really good indication for if we can take patients back early who arrive early, and for knowing where the day’s best opportunities are for handling add-ons. Our days run much smoother because we are really utilizing our time better.”
– Oncology Nurse Manager
“We took two years of historical data and pumped that into the analytic engine as well as operating constraints, how many infusion chairs are available, the hours when the chairs are open and the staff that’s available and that’s translated into a level-loaded production schedule.”
– Vice President, Cancer Services at Stanford Health Care
Stanford partnered with LeanTaaS to jointly develop iQueue for Infusion Centers and deployed it at one of its 60 chair centers to create optimized infusion scheduling templates.
After iQueue:
Higher percentile points in Nursing Satisfaction
Better Schedule Management
Scheduling with Spreadsheets + EHRs
A mix of unpredictable treatment durations and patient volume leads to scheduling bottlenecks with gaps of open chairs.
These kind of scheduling practices are like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle by accepting pieces in random order, placing them on the table and then never moving them. The triangular shape causes gridlock and missed lunch breaks for nurses.
Midday peaks
Overburdened nursing staff
High patient wait times
Inefficient chair utilization
iQueue for Infusion Centers
Predicting duration and volume leveraging Machine Learning achieves optimal chair utilization and a level-loaded infusion schedule.
An optimized schedule fits as many appointments as possible into the most appropriate slots while managing “shocks to the system” – add-ons, no-shows and cancellations. The trapezoidal shape illustrates a smooth day of operations.
Balance workloads and improve nurse-to-patient ratios
Improve nurse and patient satisfaction
Access more capacity to accommodate growth
Reduce bottlenecks and patient wait times
iQueue for Infusion Centers
Customer Quotes
“Before I was on iQueue, our nurses would be drowning at 6 patients per day. Now that we’re live, they feel comfortable with 7-8 [patients] without a problem.”
-Infusion Director
“iQueue is going well! We’ve gotten feedback about nurses being able to go to lunch and take breaks. It was very exciting to go over there and have everything be quiet and not have phones ringing off the hook. It was nice!”
-Infusion Director
“On a day we thought would be difficult (35 patients, a nurse down), it was smooth. The waiting room isn’t full of people, no rack full of charts. It’s decreasing the stress level of the nurses. Overall flow, everything is so much better.”
-Nurse Manager