Success Stories

Oregon Health and Sciences University Knight Cancer Institute Decreased Peak Infusion Chair Utilization by 14%

39% Decrease in days scheduled over maximum capacity

14% Decrease in chair utilization during peak hours

31% Decrease in running past scheduled close

5% Decrease in drug wait times

Summary

Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) is a public research university in Oregon entirely dedicated to health sciences with a main campus, including two hospitals, in Portland, Oregon. OHSU Knight Cancer Institute is one of 71 elite NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the country, and the only one designated in Oregon.

Profile

161 chairs

9 centers

Epic EHR

NCI designation

Academic Medical Center

Northwestern US

Problem

Infusion facilities across OHSU Knight Cancer Institute faced challenges in utilizing their chairs effectively and optimizing the capacity they had available. As part of this, they struggled to deliver the high-quality experience they wanted to provide for both patients and nurses. High demand for appointments at peak hours overextended resources like chairs and staff, leading to long wait times for patients and ultimately patient dissatisfaction. Nurses, who maintained heavy workloads, were further frustrated by short, rushed lunches caused by these schedules and frequently worked overtime.

Solution

OHSU Knight Cancer Institute chose to deploy iQueue for Infusion Centers to help nurses and staff smooth daily infusion schedules and workflows. This decreased wait times for patients, and staff used data from iQueue to accurately estimate wait times, which supported patient satisfaction. Using iQueue, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute also reduced the occurrence of chairs running out during operating hours, decreased drug wait times, and closed on time more frequently, thereby reducing overtime hours. As OHSU Knight Cancer Institute sites flattened their midday scheduling peaks, nurses were able to take lunches. At the Gresham campus in particular, schedulers were able to optimize future weekly schedules through schedule grooming, resulting in more balanced workloads.

OHSU Knight Cancer Institute has implemented iQueue for Infusion Centers across six sites and over 100 chairs, with the seventh site undergoing implementation. All OHSU Knight Cancer Institute sites were able to accept a larger volume of patients within two years post-iQueue implementation.

iQueue helped the schedulers so much that the charge nurses thought the phones were broken! We weren’t using our resources effectively and our most valuable resource is the people we work with…[post-iQueue] nurses could actually rely on being finished at 5:30 p.m…I can’t overemphasize how important this was for our teams…LeanTaaS has been an incredible partner.

Tyler Van Brunt

Assistant Nursing Director, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute