Event
ACHE Congress on Healthcare Leadership
Virtual
The Patient Navigation Hub in the New Normal
David Wildebrandt discussed how the healthcare delivery system is being challenged to innovate how and where patient care is provided. As the need for more integrated networks continues to grow, the relationship between the physician, health system, and technology becomes more important. Health executives and physicians must provide a high-performing network that emphasizes easy access and high-quality care for patients in a variety of care settings. Establishing a Patient Navigation Hub provides an essential bridge to communication, process, and accountability throughout a care network.
Mr. Wildebrandt reviewed the benefits of a Patient Navigation Hub and how an organization can enhance its existing patient navigation processes to navigate patients efficiently to the right place at the right time for quality care. He also discussed when and how to triage patients strategically for virtual care, telemedicine, and in-person visits for both primary care and specialists.
The Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Clinical Workforce and Patient Throughput
BRG’s Bill Orrell and Terri Marshall and Kim Richard (formerly Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center) provided an overview of health system patient throughput, including key data elements required to measure success. They discussed leading practices in managing length of stay, including a multidisciplinary approach to reduce excess patient days, a data-driven approach to identify patients at risk for long length of stay, the role of physician advisors, management of short-stay patients, and how to address common barriers to discharge.
Designing a variable clinical workforce begins with an outline of a data-driven approach to match core staffing to patient volumes and an overview of nursing productivity. The panelists discussed tools and techniques to determine unit-based staffing needs and appropriate mix of full-time, part-time, and per-diem staff, along with an understanding of the data needed to populate a variable, supplemental (float) pool to support health system staffing needs.