Track Prime Time Utilization

💡 What you'll learn: How to view and analyze prime time OR utilization in Apella Insights

Note: Prime Time Utilization is available to users who have access to Insights in Apella. If you do not have access to Insights and would like to, please contact your administrator for more information.

📚 Table of Contents

Overview
Key Benefits
Calculating Prime Time Utilization
View Utilization Trends Over Time
View Utilization Heatmap by Room

Overview

Prime Time Utilization is a dashboard within Insights that provides accurate, on-demand utilization metrics based on Apella's computer-vision detected case and turnover lengths. OR leaders can see utilization at a glance, filter by date and site, drill into specific rooms and time periods, and explore multiple perspectives on how OR time is being used.

Typically, calculating utilization requires significant manual effort by analysts or external teams. For many organizations, reports are generated once a month. By the time the data is available, the information is often outdated, limiting the ability to identify underutilized time or make timely adjustments. In addition, most utilization calculations rely on manually-entered EHR data and standardized assumptions about turnover length — both of which can introduce inaccuracies that distort the picture of how rooms are actually being used.

Key Benefits

Accurate, Ground-Truth Data 🏅

Apella’s utilization metrics are calculated directly from verified case and turnover durations detected by Apella computer vision, rather than standard turnover estimates or manually-entered EHR records.
On-demand Access 🖥️

Utilization data is accessible anytime through the Apella dashboard and updated daily to reflect the most recent OR activity.
Flexible Analysis 📊

Explore trends by room, day of week, month, or more, with the flexibility to view utilization metrics when active turnover time is included or excluded.

Calculating Prime Time Utilization

Prime Time Utilization measures how OR rooms are used during configured prime time hours. The numerator is the total case minutes (and, depending on the view, turnover minutes) that occur within prime time. The denominator is the total available prime time minutes across all rooms — representing maximum capacity. Only rooms marked as closed in Apella are excluded.

Prime Time: Your site's Prime Time Hours are configured by your Apella customer success manager. All utilization calculations are based on the range set for your facility. The dashboard allows you to calculate utilization in three different ways:

Measurement Approach Calculation

Measurement Approach	Calculation
Utilization with Active Turnover Time	Utilized minutes are case minutes that occur within prime time, plus the cleaning minutes following each case (turnover `cleaning` phase from `wheels out` to `mop out` ) and the opening minutes prior to each case (turnover `opening` phase from `back table open` to `wheels in` ). Note: Any idle time between cleaning and opening (turnover `cleaned` phase from `mop out` and `back table open` ) is excluded from utilized minutes. The `opening` phase before the first case and the `cleaning` phase after the last case are also excluded.
Utilization with Case Minutes Only	Utilized minutes include only case minutes within prime time. No turnover time is counted.
Utilization with Turnover Goal	Utilized minutes are case minutes that occur within prime time, plus your site's target turnover time, showing potential utilization if turnovers consistently met the goal.

Utilization with Active Turnover Time

Utilized minutes are case minutes that occur within prime time, plus the cleaning minutes following each case (turnover cleaning phase from wheels out to mop out ) and the opening minutes prior to each case (turnover opening phase from back table open to wheels in ).

Note: Any idle time between cleaning and opening (turnover cleaned phase from mop out and back table open ) is excluded from utilized minutes. The opening phase before the first case and the cleaning phase after the last case are also excluded.

Utilization with Case Minutes Only Utilized minutes include only case minutes within prime time. No turnover time is counted.

Utilization with Turnover Goal Utilized minutes are case minutes that occur within prime time, plus your site's target turnover time, showing potential utilization if turnovers consistently met the goal.

View Utilization Trends Over Time

The trend view shows site-level utilization over time. By default, it displays utilization across all rooms and all days.

Users can filter by day of week (including weekday vs. weekend), site, and specific rooms. The timescale can be adjusted to view trends by day, by week, or by month. Users can toggle between the three utilization calculation methods (with turnover, without turnover, or with turnover goal) to compare perspectives.

View Utilization Heatmap by Room

The heatmap view shows utilization broken down by room, with the option to add a second dimension for deeper analysis. The color scale ranges from white (0% utilization) to dark purple (100% utilization).

Users can choose which utilization metric to display (utilization with turnover, without turnover, or with turnover goal) and add a second dimension to view rooms by day of week, by week, or by month. This makes it easier to spot patterns — for example, identifying that a specific room is consistently underutilized on Fridays, or that utilization drops in certain rooms during afternoon hours.