Opportunity to Improve
Afflicted by the collapse of the steel industry and the closure of General Motors’ Lordstown plant, Mercy Health – Youngstown is one of the only tertiary care providers within the Mahoning Valley. Because of our stance as an integral part of our community and our commitment to serve, our partnership with Conduit Health Partners allows us to increase access to care and strengthen our partnerships with other providers in our community.
The Need
We already knew that our physicians and key stakeholders were frustrated by our legacy process for initiating interfacility patient transfers. Once we got word that our neighboring community hospitals preferred to send their patients to out-of-state facilities due to our laborious transfer process, we knew something needed to change.
The Solution
We sat down with each of our stakeholders to understand their ideal process for transfers. We partnered with Conduit Health Partners to implement sweeping process changes that led to increased efficiencies across several disciplines.
The Benefit
The benefit was a clearer, more streamlined process that not only functions efficiently for Conduit Health Partners, but also for Mercy Health – Youngstown physicians, hospitalists, bed placement specialists, EMS, patients, and referring facilities within our community.
Our partnership with Conduit Health Partners has provided overall clarity and standardization to the transfer processes. We make and receive less phone calls to place the right patients at the appropriate level of care.
Dr. Derek Goodyear, Medical Director, Sound Physicians — Youngstown
