Like many hospitals across the country, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., often operates at capacity. But working closely with area market hospitals has been key to improving patient flow and mitigating boarding, according to the hospital's chief medical officer.
In June, 52 patients were transferred from Wake to one of four hospitals within Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist to continue their inpatient care, or to recover from a procedure undertaken at Wake. "[Previously,] all 52 would have been admitted at Wake," Erik Summers, MD, CMO of the 885-bed main Wake Forest hospital, told Becker's.
Prior to these efforts, for instance, if a patient in Lexington, N.C., needed a GI procedure that couldn't be performed at Atrium's Lexington Medical Center, the surgery and follow-up care would all happen at Wake.
"What we have really worked on is the proverbial "systemness" — how to work together as a system," Dr. Summers said. "These moves are all for the greater good of maximizing our resources to help as many patients as we can."
Work to enhance patient flow has been years in the making and is built on strong relationships between leaders and teams across the five market hospitals, he said. Seven years ago, Dr. Summers helped build a patient flow operations center. Initially, the center focused on optimizing emergency department transfers between Wake and other hospitals, eventually expanding to include inpatient transfers.
Over the past year, the center has incorporated round-trip procedures — a component that has taken the most time to roll out, given the intricacies of surgical care.
"It's complex. It takes many pieces to put that together. You've got transport, you have to have collegiality among the teams coordinating all of the care," Dr. Summers said.
Optimizing patient flow is an ongoing priority at Atrium, with progress rooted in relationships and building on past successes. As the group continues to streamline and grow round-trip care transfers, its next area of focus is reducing length of stay.
"It takes time to build processes, but you have to constantly move forward and you have to know how to implement," Dr. Summers said.
Dr. Summers will share more on leadership and how the CMO role is evolving in upcoming podcast episode. Tune in here.