In a Nutshell

What if every surgical patient could receive a complete, clinically accurate pre-operative call across 13 procedure types and multiple languages, without adding to your nursing workload?

A leading orthopedic ambulatory surgery center in New Jersey faced a common operational challenge. Nurses were spending hours each day making routine pre-op calls covering fasting instructions, medication holds, arrival logistics, and transportation requirements.

To streamline the process, the center partnered with Otomo Health to better manage these conversations using its own Voice Agent, Gabby. 

The result was a more efficient pre-operative workflow, allowing nursing staff to focus their time and expertise on patients who required clinical attention.

The Challenge

Pre-operative preparation is one of the most operationally demanding workflows in a surgical practice. Every patient requires a structured conversation covering pre-op guidelines, including fasting instructions, medication screening, arrival logistics, driver requirements, and procedure-specific guidance.

For this orthopedic ASC, the process presented three key challenges:

Heavy nursing workload. Nurses spent hours each day making repetitive, protocol-driven outbound calls, reducing the time available for direct patient care.

Inconsistent patient readiness. Unanswered calls, misunderstood instructions, and language barriers increased the risk of day-of-surgery delays, cancellations, and no shows.

Limited scalability. As surgical volume expanded across multiple surgeons and procedure types, maintaining a high-quality pre-op process would have required hiring additional clinical staff & increased costs.

The Solution

The surgery center implemented Otomo Health's AI voice platform, Gabby, to conduct complete pre-operative calls the day before surgery, following established clinical protocols through a natural, conversational experience.

Clinically Structured, Interactive Calls: 

AI-guided conversations delivered appointment confirmation, driver verification, fasting instructions, and medication screening (including GLP-1s, anticoagulants, NSAIDs, and antihypertensives), while answering patient questions in real time.

Intelligent Triage & Escalation: 

Only patients requiring individualized clinical attention were routed to nursing staff, with just 8.3% of calls needing escalation, significantly reducing administrative burden.

Multi-Lingual Patient Accessibility & Follow-Through: 

Patients could seamlessly switch to Spanish at any point, and each completed call concluded with an automated text message containing arrival instructions and the surgery center address.

The Results

Over three months, Gabby completed 300 pre-operative calls spanning 13 orthopedic procedure types for 9 surgeons, delivering measurable operational improvements for the practice.

• 91.7% of calls completed without nurse involvement

• 100+ Hours of Nursing Capacity Recovered: Equivalent to three weeks of full-time RN effort, enabling clinical staff to redirect their time from routine pre-operative outreach to higher-value patient care activities.

• Gabby supported 13 orthopedic procedure types across 9 surgeons, delivering complete bilingual (English/Spanish) pre-operative workflows without procedure-specific or bilingual staffing.

The Bottom Line

Pre-op calls are high-volume, protocol-driven, and essential to protecting operating room efficiency. A missed instruction can lead to delays or cancellations, while language barriers and staffing constraints create additional operational risk.

This orthopedic ASC demonstrated that Voice Agents can reliably manage routine aspects of pre-operative preparation without compromising the quality of care or the patient experience.

With Otomo Health, nurses focused on patient care, patients arrived better prepared, and the OR schedules remained protected.

Ready to Simplify Pre-Op Preparation for Your Nursing Team?

Discover how Otomo Health can manage clinically structured pre-operative calls across your surgical schedule.