In 2024, Nursing Catalyst surveyed more than 1,700 nurse managers to understand drivers of workload strain and unsustainability in frontline leadership. In 2026, we spoke with health system leaders to learn whether and how they have redesigned the nurse manager role since then. This case study highlights how one large health system partnered with an AI scheduling platform to reduce a significant source of nurse manager administrative burden. Click here to explore the full series.
Executive Summary
Ochsner Health used Nursing Catalyst’s benchmarking data and staff feedback to identify organizational sources of nurse manager burden. As a result, the system pursued a redesign of the role focused on role clarity and administrative relief.
Scheduling remained the most significant driver of nurse manager administrative burden, even after the role redesign. Nurse managers faced a system-wide problem rooted in fragmented, manual workflows that varied across Ochsner’s 40+ hospitals. To address this, Ochsner partnered with M7, a scheduling platform designed specifically for clinical workflows.
After a three-hospital pilot demonstrated meaningful time savings in scheduling and day-of-staffing, Ochsner rolled out the platform to all inpatient units across its hospitals in under five months.