Case Study: Vancouver Coastal Health achieves reduced length of stay and optimized staffing with Optum's Capacity Planner

Demand Forecasting Manages Capacity, Optimizes Staffing Levels, and Reduces Length of Stay

Vancouver Coastal Health’s Lions Gate Hospital was operating at 100–110% utilization with chronic overcrowding, ICU/OR/PACU bottlenecks, discharge delays and no reliable way to forecast patient demand—resulting in routine surge units, more than 50% of shifts incurring overtime, high labor costs and low staff morale. To address this, Vancouver Coastal Health partnered with Optum and implemented the Capacity Planner predictive analytics solution.

Optum’s Capacity Planner used historical ADT data and forecasting algorithms to predict scheduled and unscheduled demand (about 95% accuracy one month out and 98% one to three days), enabling managers to set discharge targets and align staffing proactively. The solution reduced average length of stay by 16% (creating capacity equivalent to more than 40 beds), cut surgical and surge-unit overtime by roughly 50%, lowered nursing hours per patient day by 3–11%, and delivered substantial financial benefits including about $1.1M in additional revenue and roughly $2.7M in staffing-cost savings system-wide.

Vancouver Coastal Health

Mark Chase

Executive Director of Decision Support