Hospital-Physician Alignment: One Hospital’s Story

It has been several years since Dallas-based Doctors Hospital at White Rock Lake implemented the earliest version of Care Continuity, an integrated referral management tool that is part of the T-System Performance solution. In 2007, hospital leadership sought a way to keep community physicians apprised of their patients' status while those patients were at the hospital. That basic concept – the one that drove them to use Care Continuity – ultimately resulted in numerous other, unexpected benefits that enhanced the relationship between physicians, patients and the hospital.

By automatically pushing to physicians real-time patient status information as well as the associated medical records, Care Continuity effectively bridged the gap between the hospital and community physicians. It helped Doctors Hospital establish patient-centric rapport with the local physicians, and in the process helped strengthen the working relationship between the hospital and medical staff.

While Care Continuity can be leveraged in a variety of ways, it was the ability to refer unaffiliated patients back to the medical staff that provided one of the largest unanticipated benefits – both in terms of patient safety and physician satisfaction. The tool also helps the hospital identify which non-staff physician practices in the local community have the greatest number of patients visiting the ED. That way, the physician liaison team can reach out to those practices and initiate a discussion about closer clinical coordination to support safer care transitions and reduce the number of unnecessary readmissions.

"In a fragmented industry where communication can at times be lacking, Care Continuity has provided a channel for care coordination between the hospital, our medical staff and post-acute care providers," said Eric Boon, director of business development and associate administrator at Doctors Hospital. "The people who implemented Care Continuity have been just as much an asset as the solution itself. They have been quick to make changes based on feedback from senior leadership and medical staff alike, and they are timely and proactive in responding to new system ideas. Our team at Doctors Hospital looks forward to exploring additional applications for the system."

"When I was at Doctors Hospital, Care Continuity was an invaluable business development and patient care coordination tool, even in its early stage," said Julie Martin, formerly in the Business Development Department at Doctors Hospital at White Rock Lake. "I encouraged the use of Care Continuity when I became the Director of Business Development at Texas Regional Medical Center at Sunnyvale because I had seen firsthand its positive impact. From a business development standpoint, it is a huge benefit in the area of physician satisfaction and a great recruiting tool for physicians who would like to partner with us in taking care of their patients. For the providers, it pushes the right information to them when they need it. No other tool I've evaluated provides the same value."