While simultaneously undergoing fluctuations in surgical case volume due to influxes of inpatient admissions during the COVID-19 pandemic, perioperative departments also experienced critical staffing shortages. These shortages were exacerbated by quarantined staff, leading to depletion of both employees and contractors, which in turn increased costs in efforts to supplement with additional travel staff or investment in recruiting and retention. Several leading health systems successfully leveraged innovative tools to navigate staffing shortages. 

In this session, join health system performance improvement and perioperative peers from Baptist Health Jacksonville, FL and Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) as they discuss best practices for managing OR backlogs and mitigating staff shortages in unpredictable environments. Key topics include converting block time to open time, identifying current and future volumes of surgical caseload to better match resource and staff constraints, standardizing urgency/priority definitions across facilities, and general staff retention strategies.

Both health systems adopted LeanTaaS’ advanced analytics solution iQueue for Operating Rooms to address their unique paint points. Baptist Health Jacksonville utilized a backlog management tool in the height of the pandemic, as well as proving strategies for staff optimization. OHSU leveraged predictive capacity and case length accuracy tools to effectively manage its OR rooms, given staffing and/or resource constraints. Each achieved success developing better utilization and staffing. 

Viewers of this webinar will be able to: 

• Describe how fluctuations in surgical volume and staffing shortages affected perioperative departments during COVID-19
• Explain strategies like converting block time and matching caseload to resources that optimized utilization and staffing
• Evaluate how health systems like Baptist Health and OHSU leveraged innovative tools like iQueue to manage backlogs and mitigate staff shortages