HOSPITAL MEDICINE
INNOVATORS IN INPATIENT CARE
Unlike many Emergency Medicine (EM) groups who took on Hospital Medicine group service lines because they were forced to, Core Clinical Partners has sought out Hospital Medicine (HM) opportunities since our inception to showcase our ability to move the needle on length of stay while improving quality, experience, and overall value. We were built from the ground up to provide exceptional results in both EM and HM, and these results have allowed us to become one of the fastest growing, independently financed Hospital Medicine groups in the country.
Over the past 20 years, the Hospitalist model has evolved from a new idea to become an integral piece of the healthcare experience of most hospitalized patients. We are acutely aware that the Hospital Medicine team drives overall length of stay at most hospitals and that this metric is an important part of hospital financial success.
Our Hospital Medicine groups recognize that length of stay is a quality indicator and think about this metric as they balance discharge efficiency with quality metrics and patient experience. In most larger hospitals, we have found value in some level of geographic patient assignments so that our hospitalists are well connected with their patients, nurses, pharmacists, and care managers.
Through a combination of efficient care, telemedicine, APP support for our physicians, and by leveraging the Society of Hospital Medicine’s evidence-based recommendations, we are able to provide an exceptionally high quality Hospital Medicine group that creates real value for our partner facilities.
LENGTH OF STAY (LOS)
Combining quality care with efficient patient throughput is essential for hospital-based healthcare today. Our Hospital Medicine group is continually employing Lean principles to enhance clinical operations. Our team has successfully integrated various models to optimize practices for our clinicians, leading to improved patient care. By implementing these strategies, we have reduced the length of stay (LOS) by nearly a day, increased transfer acceptance by 99.2%, and saved the health system almost $100 million. Read the full case study here.
GEOGRAPHIC PATIENT ASSIGNMENTS
Many hospitals and hospital medicine groups have tried some form of geographic rounding with varying degrees of success. When done well, geographic patient assignments creates the ability to have effective inter-disciplinary rounds which have marked effect on length of stay. When done sub-optimally, geographic rounding trials fail due to clinician dissatisfaction or a breakdown in the admission process. We created a geographic rounding handbook to showcase our best practices when launching this model.
DATA ANALYSIS
Leading a high quality Hospital Medicine group is much more than just staffing Hospitalists and reviewing quality metrics. At Core, we have deep experience with process improvement projects and bring this design thinking mindset and Lean methodology to Hospital Medicine. These projects are more challenging without robust data and our Core Analytics platform provides exactly what we need to get our hospital medicine physicians actionable, accurate, individualized data. Click to see an example of our standard Hospital Medicine data package.
TELEMEDICINE
Although the benefits of telemedicine have been seen for years in certain facets of medicine, the role of this technology in Hospital Medicine as only come into focus more recently. Our teams are utilizing telemedicine to support Hospital at Home programs, telenocturnist programs, and to provide physician support for rounding APPs. Our Core Hospital Medicine group uses telemedicine in some way as we see this as a fundamental way to provide value to our partner organizations. Read more about how we were able to add value with a system-level telenocturnist program.
OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT
Unsure about whether to make a change? At Core, we welcome the opportunity to bring our decades of expertise to conduct an operational assessment of your emergency medicine services. Our confidential assessment can examine financial performance, staffing plans, revenue cycle management, process improvement, patient flow, or all of the above.
