iQueue for Operating Rooms Case Study – Monument Health

At Monument Health perioperative departments, gaining access to operating room open time was mainly completed over the phone or via fax. Only one or two clinics could reach the OR scheduling team at once, without any guarantee the time they needed would be available once they did connect with them. On top of this, given the constantly evolving schedule due to COVID-19, opening and closing first-come, first-serve rooms quickly became a priority. This was not easily executed through Monument Health’s electronic health record (EHR).

For leadership, pulling key metrics for surgeons and managers is often a manual and time-consuming process when working directly with an EHR. This becomes even more difficult when trying to create visualizations for day-to-day operational decisions. It was critical for the Monument Health team to easily see how many rooms they needed to staff throughout the day and ensure no resources were going unused.

Monument Health implemented iQueue for Operating Rooms’ Exchange module to increase the efficiency of scheduling teams looking for OR time. Clinics can now immediately see times available in the OR that fit their provider’s case criteria. This eliminates the time-consuming phone calls and faxes when looking for first-come, first-serve time, while also providing alternative scheduling opportunities when needed. Additionally, iQueue allows OR schedulers to quickly manage open time as soon as staffing, equipment, or policy constraints arise, rather than making more complicated changes on the scheduling grid.

The Analyze module has further allowed the leadership team at Monument Health to quickly view metrics and create reports without needing to manually calculate or pull data from their EHR. To further support data transparency, personalized performance reports are sent to providers and managers to ensure they have convenient access to their data. The room usage visualizers have been an important data point used to support staffing decisions and increase efficiency. Using iQueue’s visualization solutions, the Monument Health team is able to determine when staffing is needed, and when resources can be conserved or repurposed.