Casechek
Streamlining Surgical Vendor Coordination with the Auto-Assign™
Replacing phone calls and sticky notes with intelligent vendor scheduling – before the surgeon walks in.
Overview
In most hospitals, coordinating vendor-supplied surgical implants looks something like this: an OR coordinator identifies the upcoming cases requiring vendor support, then manually texts or calls each sales rep – sometimes multiple times – to confirm availability, tray readiness, and timing. Case changes mean starting over. Cancellations require another round of calls. Every follow-up is invisible to everyone else in the chain. Auto-Assign™ was built to eliminate that entire layer of manual coordination. The system connects directly to the hospital's EHR scheduling feed, automatically matches incoming cases to pre-configured vendor templates, assigns the right vendor without human intervention, and sends real-time notifications to all parties – including a mobile-first vendor app for reps in the field. I owned the end-to-end design of the Auto-Assign™ feature: from workflow mapping and case template configuration UX, to the vendor-facing Tray App experience, to the SPD visibility dashboard that gave sterile processing teams advance notice of incoming trays. The challenge was designing across three fundamentally different user groups – hospital staff, vendor reps, and SPD technicians – each with conflicting incentives, different environments, and very different definitions of what 'ready' looks like.
Problem Space
Understanding the challenge.
Business Challenge
Casechek's procurement product was already tracking loaner trays and vendor check-ins. The gap was upstream: the scheduling and confirmation workflow that determined whether the right vendor, with the right equipment, showed up at the right time. Without solving coordination, downstream tracking was just damage control. Auto-Assign™ needed to be configurable enough for complex multi-vendor procedures yet simple enough that OR coordinators – already stretched thin – would actually adopt it.
User Pain Points
OR coordinators were the load-bearing node in a coordination chain that touched vendors, surgeons, SPD, and supply chain – but they had no tools built for that role. Their workflow was entirely ad hoc: a mix of texts, phone calls, whiteboards, and institutional memory. Vendor reps, meanwhile, were navigating different processes at every hospital they serviced – no standardized check-in, no shared case view, no way to confirm readiness until they physically showed up. SPD teams found out about incoming trays when they arrived, not before, leaving no time to anticipate sterilization capacity.
Constraints
The Auto-Assign™ system had to integrate with hospital EHR scheduling feeds without requiring changes to clinical systems. Vendor adoption had to be achieved through a mobile app – not a browser portal – since reps are rarely at a desk. And the entire system had to accommodate hospitals that ranged from fully automated scheduling to semi-manual processes, without forcing a single rigid workflow on all of them.
Research
How we listened.
Key Insights
- 1OR coordinators averaged 14 vendor-related texts or calls per morning before 9 AM – most of them redundant confirmations
- 2Vendor reps at multiple hospitals described arriving and finding no record of their assignment – despite having confirmed via text the day before
- 3SPD teams were regularly blindsided by late tray deliveries because no one had shared the case schedule with them until the morning of surgery
- 4Case templates were the key design insight: most procedures follow predictable vendor patterns – encoding those patterns once eliminated the need for coordinators to make the same decisions daily
- 5Vendor app adoption depended entirely on receiving information earlier, not just more conveniently – reps needed to know about cases 26+ days out to plan inventory and travel
“Before Casechek, I would send multiple texts and place multiple calls informing vendors about upcoming cases, case changes, cancellations. A very time consuming and tedious process. Now with Casechek, a couple clicks of a mouse and I'm done. I've saved hours upon hours of time.
Strategy
How we framed the opportunity.
Research synthesis revealed a clear through-line: the core issue wasn't functional – it was relational. The product wasn't failing to provide information; it was failing to establish trust, set expectations, and create the conditions for confident action.
We organized the design work around three strategic bets: (1) progressive disclosure to reduce cognitive load at each step, (2) transparency as a feature – making the system's behavior predictable and legible, and (3) emotional tone calibration to match the level of stakes users brought to the experience.
Process
How we got there.
Multi-Stakeholder Journey Mapping
Mapped the full surgical case coordination lifecycle across all three user groups simultaneously – OR coordinator, vendor rep, and SPD technician. The resulting service blueprint revealed 17 distinct handoff points between parties, most of which relied entirely on informal communication with no system of record. This artifact became the shared design foundation across product, engineering, and clinical operations.
Service Blueprint – 3 Swim Lanes
17 Handoff Points · 3 User Groups · No Shared System of Record
OR Coordinator
Reviews OR schedule
Identifies vendor cases
Texts/calls rep #1
Awaits confirmation
Follows up (no reply)
Logs case manually
Re-notifies on change
Vendor Rep
Receives text from hospital
Checks own calendar
Replies (sometimes)
Arrives at hospital
No record found
Re-confirms verbally
Delivers tray
SPD Technician
Morning tray prep begins
(No advance notice)
(No advance notice)
Tray arrives unannounced
Emergency sterilisation
Capacity exceeded
Case delayed
14
vendor texts/calls before 9 AM
17
handoff points with no system record
3
user groups with conflicting needs
Case Template Configuration UX
Designed the case template system – the core mechanism that makes Auto-Assign™ possible. Templates encode which vendors are needed for which procedure types, allowing the system to auto-assign without coordinator input once a matching case enters the EHR feed. Iterated through 6 rounds of low-fi testing with OR managers to balance flexibility (accommodating edge cases) with simplicity (not overwhelming coordinators with configuration options).
Case Template Configuration
Encoding Vendor–Procedure Patterns Once to Eliminate Daily Decisions
Configured Templates – Auto-Assign™ Rule Set
Total Knee Arthroplasty
OR – Orthopedics
Zimmer Biomet
3d
2
Dual-Chamber Pacemaker
EP/CATH Lab
Boston Scientific
2d
1
Peripheral Stent Placement
IR
Medtronic
2d
1
Posterior Spinal Fusion L4-L5
OR – Neurosurgery
Medtronic
4d
3
Iteration – 6 Rounds of Low-Fi Testing with OR Managers
R1
Initial concept – too many fields
R2
Reduced to core 4 inputs
R3
Added multi-vendor support
R4
Edge case handling
R5
Bulk import flow
R6
Final – OR approved
Vendor-Facing Tray App Redesign
Redesigned the mobile Tray App that vendor reps use to manage their case schedule, tray status, and hospital support requests. Moved from a passive notification model to an active confirmation flow – reps receive case assignments, confirm availability, and check in trays from a single screen. Designed for one-handed use in the field, with large tap targets and minimal text entry, since reps are often carrying equipment when they receive notifications.
Vendor Tray App – Mobile Redesign
From Passive Notifications to Active Confirmation Flow
Before
Text message from coordinator
No structured response
Verbal confirmation at hospital
No check-in system
Paper tray log
After
Push notification with case details
One-tap confirmation logged
Digital check-in on arrival
Scan-based tray tracking
Automated audit trail
Key Screens – Designed for One-Handed Field Use
Case Assignment
Rep receives case with full surgical details – 26+ days in advance
One-Tap Confirm
Single action confirms availability, notifies OR coordinator instantly
Tray Check-In
Barcode scan or manual check-in on arrival – no paper forms
Change Alerts
Push notification on any case update – one tap to re-confirm or release
SPD Advance Visibility Dashboard
Designed a dedicated view for sterile processing teams showing incoming vendor trays organized by case date and priority – giving SPD supervisors the advance notice they needed to plan sterilization capacity without relying on word-of-mouth from the OR. Included tray content summaries, vendor ETA flags, and exception alerts for late deliveries or incomplete documentation.
SPD Advance Visibility
Incoming Vendor Trays – 48h to 5-Day Advance Notice
Before Auto-Assign™: SPD teams found out about incoming trays when they arrived – no time to anticipate sterilisation capacity or prioritise tray prep.
Incoming Tray Schedule – Real-Time Feed
Knee Arthroplasty
Zimmer Biomet
Mon 08:00
Pacemaker Implant
Boston Scientific
Mon 09:30
Spinal Fusion L4-L5
Medtronic
Tue 07:30
Hip Arthroplasty
J&J DePuy
Tue 10:00
Stent Placement
Medtronic
Wed 08:30
Real-Time Case Change Propagation
One of the most painful parts of manual coordination was cascading case changes: a rescheduled surgery meant manually notifying every vendor who'd been confirmed. Designed an automated change propagation system that detected EHR schedule updates and pushed notifications to all assigned vendors simultaneously – with one-tap re-confirmation or release. Reduced coordinator follow-up after case changes by eliminating the re-notification loop entirely.
Real-Time Case Change Propagation
One EHR Update – All Parties Notified Simultaneously
Before – Manual Re-Notification
Coordinator learns of case change
Calls Vendor A – no answer
Texts Vendor A – awaits reply
Calls Vendor B – leaves voicemail
Texts Vendor B – confirms 20 min later
Manually updates tray log
Calls SPD to update schedule
Avg. 45 min · 7 manual steps
After – Automated Propagation
EHR System
Case reschedule detected
Auto-Assign™
Parses change – identifies impact
Zimmer Biomet
Push notification sent → 1-tap confirm
Medtronic
Push notification sent → 1-tap confirm
SPD Dashboard
Tray schedule updated in real-time
OR Coordinator
Sees confirmation status – no calls needed
<2 min · fully automated
Adoption Monitoring & Template Coaching
Designed an in-product adoption dashboard for hospital supply chain leads – showing Auto-Assign™ utilization rates by service line, case type, and coordinator. Surfaced which procedure types lacked templates (and therefore still required manual coordination) as prioritized coaching opportunities. University of Iowa moved 40% of cases to automated templates within 3 months, reaching 68.9% monthly automation within the first quarter.
Adoption Monitoring & Template Coaching
University of Iowa – 12% → 68.9% Auto-Assign™ Utilisation
Template Coverage by Service Line – Coaching Priorities
⚠ Priority coaching – templates needed
79.7%
Faster case processing
26.8d
Earlier vendor confirmation
2 hrs
Saved per coordinator / day
Solution
What we built.
We shipped Auto-Assign™ – a coordination engine that connects directly to the hospital's EHR scheduling feed, automatically matches incoming cases to pre-configured vendor templates, assigns the right vendor without human intervention, and sends real-time notifications to all parties.
Casechek · Surgical Coordination
Casechek General
#874291
Dr. Sam Roberts
2dLeft Total Knee Arthroplasty
📍 OR-305 · Orthopedics
🕐 Jun 3 · 07:30
#874292
Dr. Sara Patel
2dDual-Chamber Pacemaker Implant
📍 EP Lab 2 · Heart
🕐 Jun 3 · 09:30
#874288
Dr. Sam Roberts
1dLeft Total Knee Arthroplasty
📍 OR-305 · Orthopedics
🕐 Jun 2 · 07:30
Zimmer Biomet
AUTO#874289
Dr. Sara Patel
1dDual-Chamber Pacemaker Implant
📍 EP Lab 1 · Heart
🕐 Jun 2 · 11:00
Boston Scientific
AUTOSurgical Case Queue
The coordination dashboard organizes all upcoming cases by status – For Review, Assigned, Canceled – giving OR coordinators a single source of truth that replaced whiteboards, spreadsheets, and ad-hoc text threads.
Auto-Assign™ Engine Running
Matching 2 of 3 cases to vendor templates – 1 in progress
2 of 3 matched
65%
#874291 – Left Total Knee Arthroplasty
Zimmer Biomet
✓ ConfirmedZimmer Biomet confirmed · 2 trays · Case ready
#874292 – Dual-Chamber Pacemaker Implant
Matched template → Boston Scientific · 1 tray · 2d lead
#874293 – Posterior Spinal Fusion L4-L5
Queued…Live Notifications
Zimmer Biomet confirmed
Case #874291 · Knee Arthroplasty · 2 trays ready
SPD notified
2 trays incoming · June 3 · OR-305
Boston Scientific notified
Case #874292 · Pacemaker · Pending confirmation
Auto-Assign™ Engine Running
One click triggers the engine across all matchable cases. Each case is read from the EHR feed, matched to a vendor template, assigned, and confirmed – live – with toast notifications to vendors and SPD firing in real time.
Assign Vendor · Case #874293
Posterior Spinal Fusion L4-L5
Surgeon
Dr. Marcus Lee
OR
OR-210 · Spine Institute
Date
Jun 4 · 07:30
Days Out
3d
Auto-Assign™ suggestion
Zimmer Biomet · Posterior Spinal Fusion template · 3 trays · 4-day lead · 64 previous cases
Select Vendor
Zimmer Biomet
Template match · 412 cases · 3d lead
Stryker
Approved · 14d availability
J&J DePuy
Approved · 6d availability
Medtronic
Alternate supplier
Tray Count
Vendor Assignment & Templates
For cases without a template, coordinators assign manually and save the configuration as a new Auto-Assign™ rule. Each manual assignment makes the system smarter – encoding institutional knowledge into the engine one case at a time.
Case Calendar
Surgical Schedule – June 2026
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Zimmer Biomet
Boston Scientific
Medtronic
J&J DePuy
Stryker
Case Calendar View
The calendar gives coordinators a monthly picture of surgical volume by vendor. SPD teams see incoming trays days in advance; supply chain leads can spot coverage gaps before they become day-of surprises.
Auto-Assign™ Prototype
Explore the platform.
A fully interactive prototype of the Auto-Assign™ coordination platform – including the case queue, vendor assignment engine, and case calendar. Click Auto-Assign all to watch the system match cases to vendors and notify all parties in real time.
Launch Auto-Assign™
Case queue · Auto-Assign engine · Case calendar
Impact
What changed.
End-to-end case processing time from case creation through vendor acceptance reduced by 79.7% – eliminating the manual coordination loop that consumed coordinator mornings.
Vendors confirmed and scheduled an average of 26.8 days earlier than without Auto-Assign™ – giving reps time to plan inventory and hospitals confidence in case readiness.
OR coordinators saved 2+ hours per day previously spent chasing vendors by phone and text – time redirected to patient care coordination and higher-value case preparation.
University of Iowa reached 68.9% monthly Auto-Assign™ utilization within one quarter – with vendors pre-assigned automatically before OR staff arrived for next-day procedures.
Reflection
What I learned.
Designing for operating rooms means designing under conditions of genuine urgency. A delayed vendor confirmation isn't an inconvenience – it can push a surgery, expose a patient to risk, or cost a hospital tens of thousands of dollars in OR time. What surprised me most was how little of the coordination problem was actually about information. Everyone knew what cases were coming. The problem was that no one had agreed on whose job it was to communicate that information, in what format, to whom, and by when. Auto-Assign™ didn't just automate a task – it settled a long-standing ambiguity about accountability. Once the system made it clear that coordination was the platform's job, not any individual's job, the resistance to adoption largely disappeared. That was the real design insight: the most valuable thing we could do wasn't build a better notification. It was build a system everyone could point to and say, 'that's responsible for this.' Clarity of ownership, expressed in product design, turned out to be more valuable than any feature.