Novant Health's technology investments — past and more recent — played an integral role in how it navigated the pandemic. The health-care system chose to prioritize that funding, even when additional financial strains cropped up from Covid-19.
Novant, Charlotte's second-largest health system, partnered with software company LeanTaaS Inc. to streamline scheduling for operating rooms. It had been a largely manual process using aging capabilities, said Angela Yochem, chief digital and transformation officer at Novant. The LeanTaaS product can predict and suggest surgery time slots based on the treatment and the surgeons involved.
It has allowed Novant to accommodate more patients in the same time frames, Yochem said.
The capability proved especially helpful last year, when health systems temporarily stopped elective procedures. Novant had to reschedule about 8,000 postponed surgeries, Yochem said. The LeanTaaS software surveyed Novant's approximately 150 ORs to determine in real time when they became available. It was implemented remotely in about a month and a half.
Hundreds of employees had to be trained to use the new software, said Sanjeev Agrawal, president and chief operating officer at LeanTaaS. He praised the Novant team for being action-minded. He said there is no other option besides using technology to scale large health-care systems even further.
"It's on us to make sure that the tools are easy to use and easy to train people on, but ... you still have to get Novant's leadership to say, 'This is a priority,'" Agrawal said.
Yochem said the pandemic created a heightened sense of urgency to learn the new system. The software can show last-minute available time slots — for Novant surgeons and for other practices using its ORs.
The partnership also extends to oncology. LeanTaaS software is handling schedules at Novant's new infusion center.
The Agnes B. and Edward I. Weisiger Cancer Institute opened in late 2020 with 80 chemotherapy infusion areas. It is part of a $166 million, 260,000-square-foot project on Queens Road that also houses the Claudia W. and John M. Belk Heart & Vascular Institute.
Novant built the infusion center without a waiting area, Yochem said, in anticipation of its work with LeanTaaS. The digital capability works similar to OR scheduling. It assigns chairs to patients and alerts them when those chairs are ready. With no waiting area, Novant had no room to fail in the implementation, she said.
"The last thing they want to do is go sit in yet another waiting room to be called to a chair where they're going to be hooked up to the equipment that delivers the medicine to them," Yochem said. "The more predictive we can get about pretty much every aspect of our business, the more effective we will be in fulfilling our mission."
Mohan Giridharadas, founder and CEO at LeanTaaS, sees more opportunities for scale as the technology progresses. He compared it to modern airport operations — airports can now funnel hundreds of passengers on and off a plane, check the mechanics and switch out the staff in under an hour. Giridharadas said that type of efficiency, without compromising on safety, can be done in medical settings.
LeanTaaS and Becker's Healthcare will host a Transform virtual summit on hospital operations next week, featuring top health-care executives, including Yochem.
