Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine saw more than 5,800 patient transfers in the nine months ending March 31, a 16% increase from the same period a year earlier, according to a May 6 report from The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Ensuring efficient patient transfers for complex, specialized medical services is a core part of the health system's business model, leaders told the news outlet. The system's transfer center works to connect patients with specialized medical services as quickly as possible. Transfers typically fall into three categories: clotting, bleeding and organ failure. For stroke transfers, considered the most critical, the goal is get patients into a bed or procedural area within two hours.
"We generally are in the business of acute care rescue," Bill Schweickert, MD, a physician executive who oversees patient access and flow at the health system's Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told the Inquirer.
The average case-mix index for patients — a measure that reflects patient severity and treatment complexity — at the hospital is 2.92, the highest in the Philadelphia region, according to Medicare data cited by the news outlet. For transfer patients, the index is 3.7.
The health system depends on the delivery of specialized, complex care to fund much of the other work the academic health system is known for, including its research enterprise.
"America pays you more for advanced medicine," Kevin Mahoney, CEO, of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, told the Inquirer. "Because of our advanced medicine strategy, we can fund research, we fund the work in the community. Without advanced medicine, nothing would hang together."
Penn Medicine is equally focused on delivering advanced outpatient services that are not easily accessible, leaders said, citing the addition of proton beam therapy at Lancaster (Pa.) General Hospital.