Apella Launches AI-Powered Horizon Platform for Surgical Scheduling Optimization

Apella, a health technology company, today unveiled Apella Horizon, a groundbreaking expansion of its real-time AI platform designed to transform surgical scheduling and capacity optimization. The San Francisco-based company has created what it describes as the industry's first unified solution combining real-time operating room management, scheduling optimization and workflow efficiency insights within a single platform powered by computer vision and predictive AI.

The platform addresses a fundamental challenge in hospital operations where manual scheduling processes often lead to significant inefficiencies. By leveraging ambient sensing technology and data captured directly from operating rooms, Apella Horizon enables hospitals to dramatically improve case duration accuracy and maximize surgical utilization before operations begin. The system seamlessly integrates with Apella's existing real-time OR management tools and electronic health record systems, creating a comprehensive workflow from pre-operative planning through day-of coordination to retrospective performance analysis.

"When OR schedules rely on manually entered data, it can lead to inaccurate scheduling, which can impact resources and patients," explained Roberta Schwartz, Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Houston Methodist. "Ambient technology captures real-time, contextual insights, which helps us not only keep ORs running efficiently, but also find new capacity that isn't obvious when you're just looking at the block schedule."

The impact of Apella Horizon has been substantial in initial pilot programs. Hospitals implementing the platform's case duration forecasts experienced an average reduction of 69 delayed minutes per operating room daily while maintaining case volume. The system also achieved a 46-point reduction in late OR days, while the percentage of cases under-scheduled by more than 30 minutes plummeted from 60 percent to just 16 percent. Additionally, participating hospitals successfully filled two additional cases per OR monthly by utilizing Apella's automatic identification and promotion of available time slots.

"For years, hospitals have made high-stakes OR scheduling and capacity decisions using limited data from EHRs — systems designed for documentation, not operations," said David Schummers, CEO of Apella. "Horizon replaces those subjective, inconsistent inputs with ground-truth data captured directly from the OR. Apella's ambient sensors and machine learning enables more accurate predictions, smarter use of OR time, and stronger trust between physicians and perioperative leaders."

The platform's core capabilities include Case Scheduling Forecasts, which generate precise duration predictions based on procedure type, surgeon and contextual factors while flagging cases likely to be incorrectly scheduled. Its Block Optimization feature provides real-time dashboards organized by surgeon or service line, helping surgical leaders identify underutilized allocations and make informed reallocation decisions. The Targeted Case Placement functionality surfaces high-value open time slots and recommends optimal scheduling using algorithms that consider constraints such as case length and surgeon availability.

"When scheduling predictions, day-of decisions, and performance metrics all stem from the same data foundation, OR leaders can act with greater consistency and confidence," Schummers added, emphasizing the platform's unified approach to surgical operations management.

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