Episode Overview

Podcast: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Guest: Mohan Giridharadas, Founder & CEO of LeanTaaS
Host: Molly Gamble, Becker's Healthcare
Date: September 10, 2025
Theme: Tackling Health System Capacity and Throughput
Purpose: This episode delivers rapid-fire, real-world answers to operational questions submitted by health system leaders. Mohan Giridharadas shares practical insights, analogies, and forward-thinking advice on using technology—especially AI and optimization—to address hospital capacity, improve throughput, and enhance operational efficiency in an era of resource constraints.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The State of Health System Capacity (00:00-02:02)

• Urgency of Issues: Hospital leaders face acute and worsening operational pressure points like overflowing emergency departments, backed-up beds, and rising wait times.
• Core Challenge: Not just managing day-to-day operations, but adapting quickly to changing pressures, resource shortages, and demand unpredictability.

2. Leveraging AI to Improve the Bottom Line (02:02-03:46)

Question from a CFO: “How to leverage AI to improve the bottom line?”
Mohan’s Response:

• AI as a Driver: “AI and algorithms in general can drive operational excellence. At the end of the day, improving the bottom line is improving the operational excellence with which hospitals and health systems execute their day to day work.” (02:16)
• Three Pillars of Operational Optimization:
  • Asset Utilization: Ensure high use of facilities (like ORs).
  • Staff Optimization: Having the right people for the right assets.
  • Patient Flow Optimization: Streamlining the movement of patients through the system.
• Industry Analogy: Compared optimizing hospital resources to airlines maximizing plane usage—full planes, minimal ground time, and efficient passenger flow.

3. “There Must Be a Better Way”: Transforming Healthcare Operations (03:46-05:36)

Question from a CIO: Expressed frustration with existing workflows.
Mohan’s Response:

• Continuous Supply-Demand Matching: “Healthcare is a service. In a service, supply and demand have to continuously match… you can't put either the patient or the cardiologist on the shelf.” (04:00)
• Automate Routine Tasks: A significant portion of frontline (e.g. charting, data entry) can—and should—be automated.
• Move from Reporting to Predicting: “Scoreboards don’t win football games. Better plays win football games.” (05:11)
  • Focus should shift from dashboards to actionable, predictive decision support.

4. Lowering Cost While Maintaining Quality (05:36-07:25)

Question from a CEO of a Rural Community Health System: Balancing reduced costs with high-quality care.
Mohan’s Response:

• ORs as Financial Engines: “The ORs are the financial engine of the hospital… optimizing OR utilization drives both top and bottom line growth.” (05:57)
• Operational Leverage: “Every $2 unlocked in operating margin improvements is equivalent to a hundred dollar increase in net patient revenues.” (06:41)
• Shift Away from Expanding Infrastructure: Previously, hospitals would “build their way out of trouble.” Tight finances now demand maximizing existing resources.

5. The Role (and Limits) of EHR Companies in AI Optimization (07:25-09:35)

Question from Senior Director at a Cancer Center: On how major EHRs (like Epic, Cerner) use AI in OR workflows.
Mohan’s Response:

• EHRs’ Core Role: Great as repositories and sources of truth but not as engines for predictive analytics or capacity optimization.
• Recent AI Announcements: Focused on ambient listening and inbox management—helpful, but not on workflow or throughput optimization.
• Current Limitations: “We simply have not seen evidence of sophisticated prediction, yield management like optimization… from either of the EHRs.” (08:21)

6. Removing Bottlenecks: Predict, Prescribe, and Nudge (09:35-12:12)

Question from VP of Case Management: Current strategies to address bottlenecks.

Mohan’s Analogy & Solution:

• Pre-GPS vs. GPS Metaphor:
  • Old method: Only recognized jams after stuck.
  • New method: Predictive tools (like Google Maps for traffic) allow proactive rerouting.
• Proactive Healthcare Parallel: “Healthcare lives in a pre-GPS world… most hospitals wake up to the same message: the EDs are boarded, the PACUs are boarded…” (09:56)
• Key to Solving Bottlenecks: Predict challenges in advance, anticipate barriers, and “nudge” actions—much like redirecting traffic before the jam occurs.

7. Improving Throughput with Limited SNF Beds (12:12-14:57)

Question from a CMO: Improving patient flow despite limited skilled nursing facility (SNF) beds.

Mohan’s Advice:

• SNF Capacity is Opaque: SNFs are selective and don’t openly advertise bed availability.
• Don’t Fixate on the “Hardest Cases”: Analogized to bank holiday traffic—removing the right small group can ease flow for all.
• Target Discharges Strategically: “Focus on accelerating the discharges where you can actually move the needle…” (14:34)

8. Expediting Discharges & Addressing ER Boarders (14:59-18:48)

Two-Part Question from a Patient Logistics Director:

• Expediting Discharges:
  • Hotels vs. Hospitals: Hotels clear departures before arrivals; hospitals do the opposite, creating bottlenecks.
  • Data-Driven Prediction: Use granular census prediction to prioritize discharges and avoid gridlock at the unit level.
  • “If I got them out of the way… unit 2 won’t have a problem anymore.” (16:54)
• ER and Boarding Workflows:
  • Predict where ED admits will need beds and prioritize those discharges preemptively.
  • Emphasizes viewing the hospital as a network, addressing interconnected problems together.

9. ROI of LeanTaaS for OR Utilization (18:48-20:38)

Question from AVP of Surgical Services: “What’s the ROI from using LeanTaaS?”

Mohan’s Data:

• Scale: 700 hospitals, 6,000 ORs using LeanTaaS optimization.
• Typical Gains: 4-6% improvement in staffed room utilization, routinely higher.
• Economic Impact: $80–$100k per OR per year; 2x ROI guaranteed, often delivers 3–4x.
• Unique Guarantee: “If we haven’t delivered at least twice the cost of the product, we will refund the gap.” (19:49)

10. Best Ways to Evaluate Operational AI (20:38-22:48)

Question from Manager in Business Operations: How to assess AI technology before implementing it.

Mohan’s Recommendations:

• Clarity on Operational vs Clinical AI: Stick to operational AI for throughput, as clinical AI has higher stakes.
• Preview and Predict ROI: Watch demos, use prediction models, and start with single-facility pilots.
• Right “Minimum Unit”: Deploy at a whole hospital (not a subset of units) to avoid confusion and maximize impact.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Data Dashboards vs. Actionable Insight:
  “Scoreboards don’t win football games. Better plays win football games.”
  — Mohan Giridharadas (05:11)

• AI as a Game Changer:
  “AI gives us a unique opportunity to go after [operational excellence].”
  — Mohan Giridharadas (03:28)

• About EHRs’ Limitations:
  “They are not the source of intelligent optimization... They don’t have the view of all of the data.”
  — Mohan Giridharadas (08:07)

• Traffic Jam Analogy:
  “Healthcare lives in a pre-GPS world... [We] didn’t know about a problem until we were neck deep in it.”
  — Mohan Giridharadas (09:56)

• Operational Leverage:
  “Every $2 unlocked in operating margin improvements is equivalent to a hundred dollar increase in net patient revenues.”
  — Mohan Giridharadas (06:41)

• On Organizational Change:
  “It’s impractical to think of partial deployment... you’ve got to find the right minimum scope that is contained, is safe and delivers the impact before you worry about scaling it.”
  — Mohan Giridharadas (22:20)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and Scope of the Problem: 00:00–02:02
• Using AI for Bottom Line Improvement: 02:02–03:46
• “A Better Way” – Modernizing Healthcare Operations: 03:46–05:36
• Lowering Costs Without Sacrificing Care: 05:36–07:25
• Limits of AI in EHRs: 07:25–09:35
• Removing Bottlenecks with Predictive Analytics: 09:35–12:12
• Throughput and the SNF Bottleneck: 12:12–14:57
• Expediting Discharge & ER Boarding Solutions: 14:59–18:48
• LeanTaaS ROI Claims: 18:48–20:38
• How to Evaluate AI Solutions: 20:38–22:48

Additional Resources

• Mohan Giridharadas’s book: “Better Healthcare through Math”
  “It's an excellent sleep aid for anyone who wants to learn more about how we think about it.” (23:19)

This episode offers a candid, jargon-free look at the realities—and opportunities—of transforming hospital operations using math, AI, and a shift in mindset, all directly from the front lines of healthcare leadership.