How One Hospital Cut Surgical Wait Times by 50 Percent

The Operations Podcast with Fexingo: Process, People, and Profit in Modern Business · Jun 22, 2026 · 8m · transcript

Episode 68 of The Operations Podcast dives into a real-world operations overhaul at a major US hospital system that reduced patient wait times for elective surgeries by 50 percent without adding staff or beds. Lucas and Luna walk through the specific changes: a centralized scheduling system, a standardized preoperative checklist, and a 'pit crew' model for operating room turnover. They break down how the team used data on actual surgical durations rather than estimates, cut average turnover from 42 minutes to 18, and boosted patient satisfaction scores by 22 points. The episode…