Orthopedic operating room (OR) utilization has evolved from a simple operational metric into a critical driver of hospital margins and overall service line performance. Leading orthopedic providers are now leveraging advanced analytics to transform raw surgical data into actionable insights that improve efficiency, enhance patient care, and protect profitability. With high case volumes and significant variability in procedure length, staffing needs, and equipment requirements, orthopedic departments face unique scheduling and resource allocation challenges. Traditional manual planning methods and retrospective reports often fail to keep pace with this complexity, resulting in late starts, underutilized blocks, case overruns, staff overtime, and reduced patient satisfaction. Modern OR analytics platforms shift the focus from historical reporting to real-time visibility and predictive insights. By standardizing key performance indicators such as block utilization rates, first-case on-time starts, turnover times, cancellation rates, and case duration accuracy, leaders gain a clear understanding of where inefficiencies occur and how to address them. Analytics enables more accurate case time predictions, better block allocation decisions, and smarter staffing models aligned with actual demand patterns. Improving OR efficiency directly impacts margins by increasing throughput without adding new operating rooms, reducing overtime costs, and optimizing case mix and resource utilization. Data-driven strategies also support long-term planning decisions, such as determining whether additional surgical capacity is truly needed. By consolidating data from scheduling systems, EHRs, and financial platforms, orthopedic leaders can create a unified view of performance and foster accountability across teams. In today’s environment of rising costs and shrinking reimbursements, analytics-driven OR optimization has become a strategic necessity for sustainable growth and competitive advantage in orthopedics.