IU Health moved a flexible nurse pool across 16 hospitals with analytics

The United States was projected to face a shortage of half a million nurses by 2025, with burnout and turnover rates above 20 percent.

Indiana University Health, 16 hospitals and over 9,000 nurses serving 1.4 million residents across five regions, launched Delta Coverage: a flexible pool of resource nurses deployed in short stints where patient occupancy spikes.

An analytics suite launched in October 2021 optimizes deployment across the system. The final pilot, May-June 2023, cut understaffing by 13 percent and overstaffing by 5 percent, with annualized savings estimated above $400,000 and more than 220 understaffed shifts avoided.

Move a flexible pool, not contracts

One state-wide pool absorbs local occupancy spikes

Short deployments respond faster than annual travel contracts

The optimizer balances fairness across hospitals and nurses

Measured pilot results made the model credible for expansion

When demand swings across sites, a shared flexible resource with a central optimizer beats each site hiring its own buffer; the same principle transfers to any multi-location service network.

Delta Coverage was a finalist for the 2023 Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in the Practice of Advanced Analytics and Operations Research; its paper appeared in the INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics. The Purdue-Indiana team also won the 2024 Innovative Applications in Analytics Award.