When Erlanger decided to partner with Qventus in June 2025, they had clear objectives: grow strategic surgical service lines, increase robotic asset utilization, and become a destination of choice for independent surgeons in the Chattanooga region.
Six months later, they’re sharing results that demonstrate what’s possible when health systems combine operational and clinical expertise with AI-powered automation.
The Results: Best-in-Class Outcomes in Record Time
The partnership delivered measurable results across multiple dimensions of OR performance:
- Capacity Creation: Nearly 12 additional OR hours per room per month generated through intelligent block release nudges
- Case Volume Growth: 220 additional surgical cases per month compared to the same period last year, directly addressing Erlanger’s goal to grow strategic service lines and serve more patients
- Surgeon Engagement & Growth: 10% higher growth rates for surgeons actively engaged with the Qventus platform compared to non-engaged surgeons—demonstrating that the platform doesn’t just create capacity, it drives meaningful adoption and behavior change.
- Robotics Optimization: Nearly 25% increase in robotic surgical volume year-over-year for surgeons who engaged with marketed time—helping Erlanger maximize their investment in high-value robotic assets.
- Financial Impact: Break-even achieved in under 3 months, with the health system on track for 5x annualized ROI.
Let’s take a look into the challenges they faced, and how they overcame them to achieve these results.
The Challenge: Surgical Growth in a Competitive Market
Erlanger plays a critical role in delivering advanced, life-saving care across Chattanooga and surrounding communities. But like many health systems, Erlanger faced operational challenges that limited their ability to grow surgical volumes:
- Over 30% of OR block time was going unused
- Robotic rooms were being filled with non-robotic cases
- Independent surgeons were taking cases to competing facilities
- OR and clinic schedulers were spending hours on manual phone calls and faxing to coordinate scheduling
- Leaders lacked real-time insights into referral patterns, splitter surgeons, and true growth opportunities
Traditional scheduling tools and limited EHR capabilities weren’t solving these problems. Erlanger needed a partner who could help them operationalize their growth strategy—not just provide another dashboard.
The Partnership: AI Teammates Embedded in Clinical Workflows
Erlanger selected Qventus’ Surgical Growth Solution for its ability to go beyond basic scheduling and actually automate high-impact workflows.
The platform operates continuously, providing surgeons and scheduling staff with intelligent automation that adapts to their workflows. AI-powered algorithms learn individual surgeon preferences and practice patterns, then proactively identify optimal matches between available OR time and surgical cases—replacing outdated first-come, first-served approaches with data-driven prioritization of high-impact procedures.
Key components leveraged by Erlanger included:
TimeFinder: Surgeons and their schedulers can view relevant OR time in seconds without logging into the EHR. Qventus algorithms predict wheels-in to wheels-out case lengths based on surgeons’ past performance, allowing intelligent prioritization of available surgical slots.
Capacity Assistant Proactively engages surgeons and schedulers to incentivize block release weeks in advance. Machine learning models predict with confidence which blocks are unlikely to be used up to a month in advance, sending timely, actionable prompts to release those blocks.
Strategic Marketing Assistant: Automatically markets time to surgeons who are the best fit based on practice patterns, past booking behavior, case mix, and average case lengths—removing the burden of manual calling. The system prioritizes health system strategic objectives like growing targeted service lines or improving robotic utilization.
Robotics Optimizer: Maximizes ROI for high-value robotic assets with automated, ML-driven communications that strategically market time to robotics surgeons.
What Made This Partnership Different
Speed and depth of impact like this doesn’t happen by accident. Several factors contributed to Erlanger’s exceptional results:
1. Deep Partnership from Day One
“Qventus worked side-by-side, in the trenches with our care teams to ensure our success,” said Misti Mattox, Vice President of Surgical Services at Erlanger. “The platform has become an integral part of how we optimize our OR operations, and the engagement from our surgeons speaks volumes about its value.”
Qventus didn’t just implement software—the team embedded themselves in Erlanger’s workflows, worked closely with schedulers and surgeons, and ensured adoption at every level.
2. Focus on User Experience
The platform was designed for frontline staff. Clinic schedulers shared: “Before Qventus, I was on the phone constantly trying to track down OR availability. Now I can see what’s open in seconds and get cases scheduled in just a few minutes—sometimes the same day. Qventus has made such a difference for my day-to-day and for getting our patients scheduled quickly.”
3. Intelligent Automation, Not Just Alerts
Rather than notifying users about every available slot, the system learns preferences and only sends nudges that are a good fit. As one surgeon noted: “I’ve seen real growth in my practice since we started using Qventus. The nudges let me know when OR time opens up that actually fits my schedule and case mix—I’m not getting bombarded with slots that don’t make sense.”
4. Measurable Clinical Engagement
98 different surgeons booked a case directly from a Qventus nudge during the first six months—demonstrating broad adoption across the surgical staff, not just early adopters.
Looking Ahead: Continued Growth and Optimization
The exceptional results in the first six months have established a strong foundation for continued partnership and operational excellence.
“Erlanger’s results demonstrate their commitment to innovation and operational excellence,” said Mudit Garg, CEO of Qventus. “By empowering their surgical teams with advanced technology, they’re expanding access to care for their community in meaningful ways. This is a testament to their leadership’s vision and their surgeons’ engagement with new approaches to care operations.”
As health systems across the country face pressure to grow surgical volumes, optimize high-value assets, and improve margins, Erlanger’s results provide a roadmap for what’s possible when healthcare operations expertise meets AI-powered automation.
