Using an innovative approach to address critical staffing challenges in operating rooms (Becker’s Hospital Review)
Originally published in Becker’s Hospital Review in February 2022. Reports from the front lines of hospital perioperative departments show a daily, ongoing staffing crisis. Short-handed nurses and other personnel are strained to handle the unpredictable capacity demands of their service lines. These critical shortages of both contracted and full-time staff are driving a cycle that increases costs […]
Helping bed staff achieve more: five goals to optimize capacity and direct inpatient flow
This article was originally published on Becker’s Hospital Review in February 2022. Severe staff shortages, new COVID variants, and unpredictable surges are making it critical for hospitals to optimize inpatient capacity. The short-handed staff who are responsible for capacity decisions must be fully equipped to direct patient flow safely, quickly, and to the best possible use of […]
Webinar Writeup: How Fred Hutchinson “Fred Hutch” Cancer Center is transforming infusion center scheduling
The Winter 2021 LeanTaaS Transform Hospital Operations Virtual Summit featured a conversation between Emily McCambridge Kowalski, Patient Access Operations Manager — Infusion, Fred Hutchinson “Fred Hutch” Cancer Center, and Armand Indra, Product Implementation and Customer Success Manager at LeanTaaS, on Fred Hutch Cancer Center’s ongoing success in infusion center scheduling optimization to the benefit of nurses, […]
Webinar Writeup: How Nebraska Medicine grew infusion center volumes while keeping wait times under 10 minutes
At the Winter 2021 LeanTaaS Transform Hospital Operations Summit, Becky Duchman, Director of Infusion and Treatment Services at Nebraska Medicine’s Buffett Cancer Center, presented a session on her center’s success with taking a data-driven approach to managing infusion center capacity, including a new approach to optimize infusion scheduling. Missed the event? We’ve got the […]
Today’s surgery scheduling technology can address OR staffing challenges
Ongoing healthcare staffing shortages have critically impacted both inpatient and infusion spaces. Technology has helped support and optimize staff in these settings and can address operating room staffing challenges as well, especially via effective surgery scheduling. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, perioperative nurse leaders and administrators already struggled to recruit and retain qualified healthcare workers to accommodate unpredictable surgery […]
Systems thinking for cancer centers: lessons from the trenches
At a roundtable session that took place at the inaugural LeanTaaS Transform virtual event in June 2021, cancer center leaders and infusion managers gathered to discuss how their facilities could apply systems thinking to finally address fundamental challenges and improve their operations, as well as experiences for patients, clinicians, and staff. This write-up summarizes session leader Ashley […]
Three keys to optimizing inpatient bed staffing
For healthcare leaders and providers, efficiently managing misaligned inpatient admissions, discharges, and transfers has always been a challenge. During the initial onset of COVID-19, hospitals were struggling to ensure they had enough bed capacity for patients to be admitted and treated safely. The struggle to manage inpatient beds is now further complicated by a shortage […]
Innovations and best practices for infusion center scheduling, from Novant Health
Novant Health and Presbyterian Medical Center, part of a large not-for-profit healthcare system in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, opened a new, larger chemotherapy and infusion center in 2020. Novant Health Nurse managers Lisa Rioux, RN, BSN, OCN, CRNI and Susan Perella, RN, OCN were part of the implementation team responsible for its successful […]
Addressing staff shortage in infusion centers: how AI can help
Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” In highly specialized and unpredictable environments like infusion centers, which often struggle to retain nurses and staff for the long term, it often seems impossible to adequately prepare. Scheduling in infusion settings is highly complex, wait times are long, and nurses are usually rushed. Clinician burnout and […]
Improving staffing management through analytics
In our recent webinar writeup, “Leveraging Your EHR Investment with Analytics,” Steve Hess, Chief Information Officer of The University of Colorado Health (UC Health), shared how the healthcare system leveraged its investment in an enterprise-wide EHR with the use of machine learning and AI. Using constraint-based optimization methods and simulation algorithms available through of LeanTaaS […]