Alleviating Staffing Challenges in the OR with Dio Sumagaysay

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Alleviating Staffing Challenges in the OR with Dio Sumagaysay

Podcast: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Host: Scott Becker
Guest: Dio Sumagaysay, Vice President, Perioperative and Multi-Specialty Procedural Services, Oregon Health & Science University
Date: September 8, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on a critical issue for U.S. health systems: alleviating staffing challenges in operating rooms (ORs). The conversation centers on how Dio Sumagaysay and his team at Oregon Health & Science University tackled historically complex, manual staffing processes by implementing digital solutions—specifically, the LeanTaaS iQueue Staff Planner. Dio shares insights on the transformation, key outcomes, and the importance of culture and buy-in during technological transitions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Dio Sumagaysay’s Role and Context ([00:40]–[02:38])

• Dio oversees perioperative services and multiple specialty procedural areas at OHSU, including 54 ORs across four locations and non-OR services such as interventional radiology (IR), cath lab, GI endoscopy, and EP.
• OHSU is Oregon’s only academic hospital, demanding extensive coordination across complex practice environments.

The Challenge: Pre-Digital Staffing Processes ([03:11]–[07:14])

• Staffing and labor account for 50–55% of healthcare costs—“not sustainable from my perspective the way our healthcare as it is now.” ([03:21], Dio)
• Prior to implementing digital tools, the team juggled disparate systems:
  • Electronic health records
  • Kronos for time and attendance
  • Physical paper schedules
  • Whiteboards
• Manual processes were consuming: up to 30 hours weekly spent just on scheduling.
• Frequent issues included lack of “source of truth,” redundant workflows, double data entry, communication problems, and poor visibility into staff qualifications.
• A key risk: “They assign me to a room that I’m not trained to… If you have a physician not trusting their team... it’s not a very good place to work with and it’s not a good day to start the day.” ([06:23], Dio)

Implementation of LeanTaaS iQueue Staff Planner ([08:01]–[12:00])

• Three primary objectives:
  • Eliminate duplicative/redundant work and enhance efficiency
  • Reduce reliance on physical paperwork and whiteboards
  • Integrate all scheduling data into one “single source of truth” for team collaboration
• The new “automated, used workflow” streamlined roster assignment, facilitated real-time tracking of staff experience and proficiency, and created opportunities for targeted staff training and cross-training.
• “We’re able to update that in a roster and really have a significant time saving... They can do it in a second just because of using that tool.” ([09:40], Dio)
• Staff qualifications and assignment history are now visible, supporting better coverage and informed training/growth plans.

Measurable Outcomes and Impact ([12:34]–[15:42])

• Weekly staffing process time saved: ~25 hours
• Turnover time improvement: ~2 minutes faster between cases, driven by a 5-minute reduction in average case length due to consistent staffing.
• Care consistency: 30% increase in overall consistency, 30–40% improvement in staff coverage
• Onboarding efficiency: Shorter orientation periods due to better visibility on staff training status
• Staff morale: Greater “buy-in,” appreciation for data-driven scheduling, and reduced perceptions of favoritism/unfair scheduling:
  • "They are enjoying pretty much the use of the staffing tools because there is a lot of data. The decision making is really driven by data and that was really important for them." ([14:19], Dio)
  • "It really eliminates the notions of unfair scheduling and favoritism... unfair scheduling and favoritism sometimes can create a toxic environment and just really can cause a burnout among the staff." ([15:10], Dio)

Implementation Lessons & Culture ([16:00]–[16:45])

• Success was attributed to staff participation and transparency during implementation:
  • “They need to be part of the process. They need to be part of that implementation process decision making and they need to know the why behind [it].” ([16:10], Dio)
• “Pretty low support” was needed from IT; most work was handled by the LeanTaaS/IQ team and end users.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Staffing and labor cost is one of the most significant expenses in healthcare... sometimes exceeds to 50 to 55%.” ([03:14], Dio)
• “There’s really no source of truth for staff assignment... sometimes they spend about 30 hours each week just creating this schedule and it’s no longer sustainable.” ([03:44], Dio)
• “When you have the right staff that are assigned to the right room... you can improve that patient outcome.” ([13:54], Dio)
• “It really eliminates the notions of unfair scheduling and favoritism... [which] can create a toxic environment and just really can cause a burnout among the staff.” ([15:10], Dio)
• “The big part... is really the buy-in of the staff and they want to be part of the process.” ([16:06], Dio)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:40–02:38: Dio’s introduction and OHSU context
• 03:11–07:14: Description of pre-digital, manual scheduling and its challenges
• 08:01–12:00: Transition to LeanTaaS iQueue; objectives and workflow changes
• 12:34–15:42: Outcomes—quantitative savings and impact on staff morale
• 16:00–16:45: Lessons learned and advice on implementation

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Summary

Through thoughtful leadership, Dio Sumagaysay and the OHSU team were able to dramatically improve the efficiency and fairness of OR staffing using digital tools. Key gains include substantial time savings, better care consistency, improved morale, and the dismantling of perceived favoritism. The episode offers actionable insights for hospital leaders seeking to modernize operational practices, highlighting the central role of staff engagement and data-driven solutions.

Transcript

[A]

This is Scott Becker with the Becker Healthcare Podcast. Today we're going to talk about an issue that is, that is key to all health systems, which is dealing with staffing challenges in the or. We're going to talk about alleviating staffing challenges in the operating room. We're joined today by a great leader. We're joined today by Dio Summergy and Dio is the vice president perioperative and multi specialty procedural services at Oregon Health Science University. Dio, we're thrilled to have you with us today. Can you take a moment before we get started to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do?

[B]

Awesome. Hello everybody. Hi. Thank you again, Scott. My name is Dios Magayzai. I'm the vice president of PARAP Services and multi specialty procedural areas. Sometimes people will say, what is that? Multi specialty procedural areas looks like it's composed of IR cath lab and GI endoscopy suites. These are the non operating room services. I've been in the organizations here at OHSU Oregon Health Science University Hospital for almost 16 years, career wise as a leader of the operating room. I've been a leader for almost 35 years as a manager, director and progression to a prize president. I work at Oregon Health Science Brazil University Hospital. For those of you who are not familiar, we're the only academic hospital here at Oregon and you know, excited to be here and kind of share with you some of my experience working with Lean Test and the implementations of the staffing tools.

[A]

Well, thank you so much. You've got IR interventional radiology.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

Endoscopy, did you say?

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

Those are the two main services, other service areas as well.

[B]

So those are the two non or services. But also we have a total of about 54 operating rooms. And those 54 operating rooms we have four locations. One is our children hospital and then the three adult locations within the campus of Oregon Health and Science University Hospital. It's a big space.

[A]

So you're really working on staffing all 54 of those. That includes everything. And then the two that are not surgical are IR and endoscopy.

[B]

Cath lab and EP. That's correct.

[A]

Gotcha. Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. You've got a busy 54 different operating rooms that you're working on staffing. Is that a fair assessment?

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

Fantastic. So talk to us about this. DIO staffing ORs has often been complex, highly manual, time consuming. When you were operating it before you had new tools and you're working with Lean toss. Now the IQ staff planner and so forth. Before you had those tools, what did sort of staffing look like and how did you try and manage the complexity of 54 different ors? It seems like remarkably a lot of work, particularly without some of the newer tools. Talk about that a little bit, what that looked like.

[B]

Yeah, so you know, kind of give a little bit of background. Scott, we all know that staffing and labor cost is one of the most significant expenses in healthcare. And every organizations, I think we all know that they account a large portion of the total spending which sometimes exceeds to 50 to 55%. Primarily that is due to the wages, sometimes benefits and we are required to do that in order to attract and retain workforce. And that is really important for us. Unfortunately this is not sustainable from my perspective the way our healthcare as it is now. So what I'm sharing here to the team is, and to the listener as well is really hopefully will resonate to a lot of the managers and directors and even to the charge nurses and service line coordinators that really managing the day to day assignment. And so part to really the implementations of the IQ for staffing. Our team does a lot of duplicative work and really it's a manual time consuming process just for making the staff assignment. And the reason that I said that is a time consuming that's because there's really no source of through for staff assignment. Regardless of how big the locations of the space. If you have 10 operating rooms or 50 operating rooms, there's really no sorts of truth for assignment. In my case, that's the case of where we are. My team had to refer to so many different tools and some of the tools that they have is, I remember correctly, they have electronic health record, they're pulling the data from Cronus. For some of you that are not familiar with Cronus, this is the software platform that we use for tracking employees time, the payroll and schedule. And then they also use their physical paper or schedule that is very common to pretty much a lot of organizations. Again depending on the size that you have. What they do is they juggle multiple sources just to finalize that schedule or assignment. And sometimes they spend about 30 hours each week just creating this schedule and it's no longer sustainable. I mean just watching them, to me this is not sustainable. I'm paying somebody just to make this busy work from my perspective and the work is really important, but it's just a busy work. And so from my perspective, without actually centralizing a tool for assignment, the service line coordinators or the staff or the nurse managers, they spend up to sometimes many hours just for a single day, just to create the assignment for today or for the next day. So that's a lot of work. Aside from no source of truth, there is a lot of. This is really just a lot of manual workflow that when they make an assignment, what they have to do is they have to communicate the changes back again to the staff. So that creates another extra work. There's a lot of difficulty work, as I said, this is very extensive. It's time consuming and sometimes they create a lot of double entry of data in a different system that sometimes it lead to a delay and completing the assignment. And then the. Lastly, one of the things that really stand out for me is really that there's no visibility to what they do when they assign staff to which room or what they were capable for. There is no record of knowledge of what they're capable of. Particularly for the staff nurse, sometimes the coordinator, they're assigning somebody just flying blind or what does that mean? Is that what we hear from the staff sometimes, like, oh my God, they assign me to a room that I'm not trained to. And so that's concerning, especially from a perspective that you have somebody in that room that is not familiar with their case, that may have an impact not just from the patient care, but also impact on the team itself. Because if you have a physician that not trusting their team, from my perspective, it's not a very good place to work with and it's not a good day to start the day.

[A]

So.

[B]

So it just created a lot of frustrations and risks. So that's kind of my day to day prior to the implementations of Lean test staffing tools.

[A]

Thank you. And Dio sounds like a lot of time, a lot of efforts trying to get it right. And even if you try and get it right, it's constantly in flux anyways. And in a time of staff challenges, a lot of hours spent there and then trying to juggle people in time. Talk about piloting the Lean Toss IQ staff planner to streamline assignments and better match staff experience with demand. Can you talk about what that looked like and how it changes the daily workflow for care teams? And what's been the biggest game changer for you in using this type of staff planner?

[B]

Yeah, so when we partner with leantas, the idea here again is to build that digital tool and there are three key objectives when I start working with leantas and really partner with them and what I would like to see moving forward and not Just me. What we would like my team to see moving forward because at the end of the day I really need the buy in from my team. But also at the same time, that buy in is really important because I want to see the result that's really important for me. So some of the key objectives when we start looking at this is really one is to eliminate that duplicative work and redundant workflow which what I said before, the idea here again is to streamline our operations and really enhancing the efficiency. Second part is to eliminate as much of the paperwork those physical copies that they have. Sometimes these copies exist actually in the pocket of the nurses or pocket of the church nurses or even in the folder. There's so many copies everywhere. The idea here is to eliminate the use also of the whiteboards. If you have a chance, try to visit the operator. You will see whiteboards everywhere. Aside from paper copies, they'll do another entry point and whiteboards. And the idea here is really is what does that look like using a digital approach? And that really by embracing the digital solutions, by aiming to expedite the tasks better and to improve the overall productivity. So those are some of the key objectives. And lastly is to eliminate some of the multiple tools. We wanted to integrate all the informations really into one single source of truth. Again, the goal here is to conceal the information and really provide a unified platform that we can see a seamless collaborations and decision making that the staff can use. So with this automated used workflow, we're able to eliminate a lot of the steps and really optimizing the workflow. So some of the things that really stand out is that we have a process of making or staff assignment which as I said, it's a manual test. We're able to update that in a roster and really have a significant time saving our resources. The team are now really using that time and minimal effort. Now really you see the impact the day of the surgery assignment. We can make an informed decision really quickly now. It's really smooth at this point in time. They can do it in a second just because of using that tools. We can see and this is really critical. As part of this, we can see a real time case history of where was a staffed point of assignment and the history of how many cases it's been to. And the idea of this again is to create a track record of proficiency, skills and the experience of that staff that is really, really important for us. That is the part that's been. Our team doesn't have the resources before when they make an assignment finally. Now with these tools we can track experience and the proficiency skills. And that's I think that's one of, I might say the best solutions that we can come up with this also because of that, we're able actually to create some training opportunities for staff, particularly for staff that has been in the operating for quite some time doing exactly the same thing over and over again for so many years have been working with us now we can create a plan for them that if they end up wanting to grow their experience somewhere else in a different services, we can use that experience or planner for them. And so this is really kind of a great big opportunity for us to see a big pictures also when you move cases from one location to the next locations, it's also an opportunity for us to see the big pictures of do we have enough people actually across the board that can do this type of cases so we can have a better perspective of our staffing not just from the today, but the future as we continue to plan and grow the services.

[A]

And Theo, talk to us about sort of the biggest impact, the biggest savings that have come from using this effort. I know that in looking at outcomes, Oregon Health plus Sciences University saved significant hours each week. You improve cross training, strengthen staff coverage. What results stand out to you as the most impactful both for efficiency but just as much for staff morale in moving towards a more streamlined and improved staffing plan and using the tool set.

[B]

Yeah, so let me go over Scott, of some of the documented significant, I might say outcome that we have from the operational efficiency. We save about 25 hours of saved weekly from the staffing process. And the idea here again is so that my team actually can focus on critical tasks versus actually just making a manual process. So that's 25 hours. That's a lot for the entire team. We were able to improve our turnover to about two minutes. What I mean by this is really there is reductions of our turnover time. Because of this, we reduced about 5 minutes of average case length now because we have a consistent staffing in that particular case. So again, having this visibility and insight to the data for us, we're able to empower our team athlete to make the best assignment and decision making for that matter from the team consistency. One of the things that really stand out for us is that we're able to increased a 30% increase in care consistency. And that's the same thing when I say care consistent includes staff coverage, there's about 30 to 40% increased staff coverage that is very consistent with the cases that we have. And what I mean by this is that the idea here is again is that you have the right staff that are assigned to the right room and with that alone, from my perspective, you can improve that patient outcome when you have the right people in the right place. Then of course from the training perspective, we're able to have a visibility with the training status of the staff. And what I'm seeing so far, there's been some reductions of length of orientation, which is exactly what we're looking for. We want to reduce that length of orientation from staff so that we can actually focus on the real work. Now there are really two things that really stand out that did not mention here. And some of this really came out as somewhat kind of an aha moment for us. One is that the staff really truly embraced that data driven staffing solutions. Again, when I started this I was looking for a buy in and I totally forgot that they are enjoying pretty much the use of the staffing tools because there is a lot of data. The decision making is really driven by data and that was really important for them. Second part of this, which is really, I did not think about this, but it really eliminates the notions of unfair scheduling and favoritism by the service line coordinators or church nurses. For some of you, you know this and if I remember when I was a staff, I always, always think of this, oh my God, they scheduled you me again to the same room or they did not schedule me to the room. They really wanted it create that notions of just unfair scheduling. So as we all know, unfair scheduling and favoritism sometimes can create a toxic environment and just really can cause a burnout among the staff. So by doing this actually we kind of eliminate that notions of what is unfair scheduling and favoritism looks like.

[A]

Thank you. And Theo, talk about you've had great improvements in efficiency and in morale. Was it hard to implement this? Easy to implement this? And what else can you share with us about this implementation, about the Lean Test? Wayne, toss iq. Staff planner, what are the thoughts you want to share with us?

[B]

Can you. Yeah, it's a pretty easy implementation, as I might say. The big part of this, of this implementation is really the buy in of the staff and they want to be part of the process. To me that's a big part of the focus when you implement this kind of tools is really what is the buy in? They need to be part of the process. They need to be part of that implementation process decision making and they need to know the why behind to me that is really the big part when you implement any solution when it comes to staffing. But when it comes to support of your IT department, again, I might say it's a pretty low support that's really needed. Most of the support is really done by the IQ team and your team that really using the modules.

[A]

Dio what a great pleasure to visit with you today. Amazing what you oversee in an amazing 16 year career so far at Oregon Health Plus Sciences University University. We so appreciate you sharing your thoughts and how you're managing staff from 54 ORs and procedure rooms. Just literally remarkable. Thank you for taking the time with us today. Again, this is Becker's Healthcare. This is a podcast sponsored by Lean Toss, an incredibly effective company. Thank you so much for joining us.

[B]

Thank you.