Access and Flow: Why a System Approach Works (130H)

Taking a system approach to patient access (getting in and out) and flow (getting through) maximizes the ability to care for a community of patients throughout the care continuum. Delays in care of chronic or acute conditions lead to worsening health outcomes for a community. The ability to get the right patient, at the right place, at the right time and with the right resources requires a coordinated review of resources, alignment of mindsets and systematic process to enable these processes with some amount of automation. Numerous technical and adaptive barriers can exist to implementing standardized and systemized execution of access and flow. Attendees will review a case study that features a consolidation of system resources resulting in 4,000 additional external transfers into the system in 2023, more than 600 admissions transferred from the quaternary care campus emergency room to community hospitals in 2024 year to date, zero hours of capacity-related hospital diversion in greater than 12 months, reduced ER boarding hours by 25% year over year, increased internal referrals from 68% to 72%, improved referral conversion rate by 74% year over year, and increased patient self-scheduling by 100% year over year.