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Children's Hospital/Boston
Situation:
Medical institutions nationwide have experienced heightened pressure to increase patient access, and in so doing, clinical revenue. Even the best and the brightest struggle with these challenges, including Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass., one of the premier children's healthcare organizations in the world.
Like many academic medical centers nationwide, Children's was also caught in the squeeze of diminished funding for research and teaching. Physicians, challenged by the sometimes-competing demands of clinical, research and teaching obligations, somehow had to elevate their time commitments to patient care. Physician leadership and administrators also needed to determine how to optimally use fluctuating clinical capacity, as many Children's physicians, because of multi-month academic lecture obligations and inpatient commitments, were often unavailable to deliver outpatient care. Patients, also, were demanding higher levels of access and service. Faculty prestige notwithstanding, patients would no longer tolerate waits, lines and the confusion that so often accompanies the mystique of a research and teaching institution.
The Croes•Oliva Group Contribution:
Working together, administrators, clinicians and The Croes•Oliva Group set out to create an Ambulatory Patient Care Delivery Model designed to ensure the delivery of quality care - effectively and efficiently. Meeting highly ambitious patient access targets required nothing short of a complete reorganization - a total overhaul in how patients were managed every step of the way.
With physician representation, The Croes•Oliva Group designed a model for operation designed to:
- Increase visit volume 45% over three years.
- Eliminate the need for costly facility construction by configuring a schedule that maximized available space.
- Support the sometimes conflicting goals of high productivity expectations, quality teaching and research commitments.
- Recognize and honor the need for adequate visit time necessary for complex patients.
- Increase patient access by 50%.
" The Croes•Oliva Group not only understood, but honored, our physicians' multi-responsibilities for research, teaching and clinical care. Not only did they help us reach a better balance among all three commitments, but we learned that like research and teaching, there are criteria for successful operation of clinical care. And when all three commitments are fine-tuned and aligned, visit volume and patient access can soar."
Sally Andrews, former Vice Chair for Administration and Planning
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