**Presented at the 2023 CMSA Annual Conference**
*** RN and CCM credits ***
In 2022, UCSF Health embarked on a journey to build a robust, integrated Command Center Ecosystem bringing together multiple disciplines to create a patient-centered approach to access and coordination of care. Riddled with high capacity, a crowded emergency department, length of stay and throughput challenges, it was imperative to create a robust strategy for patient capacity management. To accomplish this, a thorough workflow analysis was completed to identify opportunities to reduce time spent on key patient flow activities such as transfer acceptance and transportation coordination. The team studied models from other health systems to identify best practice approaches. Next, the team developed a model for co-location of multidisciplinary team members in a command center. Armed with data and analytics to support discharge planning and capacity management, the team used technology to accelerate patient flow helping patients to get the right care, at the right time, in the right location. Further, the team formed key partnerships with technology and transportation companies and aligned around shared goals to optimize performance. The centralized, co-located team improved rapid decision making, enabling new workflows, analytics, technology and aligned transportation resources. With increased end-to-end visibility into each workflow, the team could identify poor-performing process steps, forms, and overall inefficiencies that caused delays in discharge and patient placement. Process modification and the ability to leverage technology reduced the time spent coordinating patient placement by 80%. Bringing transport resources and technology into the center reduced the time it took to confirm a transportation request from 45 minutes to an average of 1:28 minutes. More importantly, within two months of implementation, the team saw a 2 hour shift in peak peak discharge times and custom transport programs accelerated the time it took to pick up a patient from a sending facility to just 23 minutes. Coordination of patient placement and care transitions is complex, and involves multiple players. Creating strategic partnerships and centralizing resources enabled with technology and analytics, can improve patients’ first and last impressions, access to care, and overall health system capacity.
OBJECTIVES:
- Identify how to build a centralized care coordination ecosystem to manage health system capacity.
- Create real time visibility inbound and outbound transition analytics to enable process improvements.
- Design custom workflows for key strategic services that optimize the patient experience and accelerate transfers.
