San Juan Regional Medical Center, a 197-bed community hospital serving the Four Corners region, faced a critical challenge: manual Excel-based OR tracking that created bottlenecks, limited patient access, and operational blind spots. As the sole healthcare system in a remote region 180 miles from the nearest major city, inefficient capacity utilization directly impacted the community's access to surgical care.

In this session, John Gaede, CIO, and Dr. Carlo Hallak, Physician Informatics Executive, will share how San Juan Regional unlocked surgical access and achieved remarkable results in just 90 days after launching iQueue for Operating Rooms.

Three Key Takeaways:

Partnership Over Product – Building Trust Through Hands-On Support

Success wasn't about the technology alone; it was the at-the-elbow support, weekly problem-solving, and relationship-building that drove 88% adoption in 90 days. For independent hospitals with lean teams, vendor partnership is the difference between implementation and transformation.

Bridge the IT-Clinical Divide – The Clinician as Translator

Having a physician executive lead informatics enabled rapid alignment between technical capabilities and clinical workflows, eliminating the typical silos that delay implementations. Dr. Hallak's dual perspective as clinician and IT leader was essential to navigating physician concerns, perioperative workflows, and organizational priorities simultaneously.

Data Validation Builds Trust – Flexibility + Physician Champions Win Credibility

Investing weeks in validating iQueue metrics against the EHR—with a physician champion at the hospital confirming the data—transformed skepticism into sustained engagement. Equally important: showing flexibility in the beginning phase. For example, setup and cleanup time was initially set at 30 minutes but adjusted to 44 minutes through discussions with physicians to match reality. This combination of rigorous validation and operational responsiveness built the foundation for data-driven decision-making.