Expanding Patient Access capacity for University Hospitals
University Hospitals is a nationally-ranked healthcare system with a sprawling network of 21 hospitals, more than 50 health centers, and over 200 physician offices in 16 counties across northern Ohio. In fall of 2021, UH kicked off a $600M project to convert over 5.6 million patient records and scheduling systems to Epic. The implementation would consolidate over 15 disparate systems into a single, integrated EHR within an accelerated project timeline: Wave One would go live in March 2023, followed by Wave Two in September 2023.
As Wave One of the project progressed, UH’s Patient Access team had to balance the ever-increasing needs of both the Epic implementation and their legacy system. At the same time, they realized that if more resources weren’t allocated to the new system, they wouldn’t be able to maximize the opportunity for invaluable knowledge transfer and skills enhancement between the template team and the build team. Additional capacity would be required to accomplish their goals. To address this challenge, they needed a partner who could provide expertise and value at a competitive cost while serving as a complement to UH culture and leadership. “We had worked with multiple firms before,” said Brandon Darrington, Senior Director of Ambulatory Access & Strategy at UH, “but TruTeam provided competitive pricing along with an alignment we wanted in the vendor relationship that we weren’t going to see from other firms. We also liked that they were an Epic-only firm, so had a deeper understanding of how Epic flowed across different functions of our organization and what things we should look out for.”
“The recruiting process was seamless. TruTeam filled presented great candidates who were thoughtful, down-to-earth, and understood what it meant to be a consultant.” ”
With TruTeam on board, UH leadership developed a two-pronged approach: the Patient Access team would operate in a swivel environment between day-to-day system needs and implementation activities. To execute this approach, TruTeam immediately jumped in to provide skilled consultants who could focus on the Epic build and development, as well as cross training and building up the in-house team. “The recruiting process was seamless,” said Darrington. “TruTeam filled all the roles within a two-week period. They presented great candidates who were thoughtful, down-to-earth, and understood what it meant to be a consultant.”
With the expanded capacity enabled by TruTeam, when UH went live with Wave One, the entire team was able to help with template validation, as well as change control and management. In addition, incoming ServiceNow tickets were able to be parsed out between the two teams, enabling more visibility and insights. “An unintended benefit of this approach is that it helped us better assess our demand. It shed light on what type of staffing and workforce management needs were required. We had TruTeam consultants coming in that knew the system, so it helped us gauge overall competencies and establish benchmarks that could be our ‘new norm,’” said Darrington.
As the implementation progressed, TruTeam’s support helped UH ensure continuity across the team. “We didn’t have any turnover with TruTeam consultants, so I think that’s a shining beacon,” Darrington shared. “We had a very consistent team from beginning to end and were able to easily flex for each wave.”
Darrington also highlighted the strong collaboration between TruTeam consultants. “It’s serendipitous to have an entire team that’s cohesive off the bat. All of them took it upon themselves to try to add value—whether it was creating helpful documentation and resources or building exceptionally strong relationships with providers to ensure they received velvet glove support—they leaned in and worked together without anyone really having to ask.”
“Working with TruTeam is phenomenal. I would recommend them because the experience is seamless”
Another contributing factor to UH’s success was the overall partnership. “Working with TruTeam is phenomenal. I would recommend them because the experience is seamless,” said Darrington. “They understand the business, especially when it comes to adjusting for the technical needs of the health system. They’ve bent over backwards to ensure the success of the alignment between our organizations and served as a strong intermediary for feedback so we could lean in from our side and work collaboratively to figure things out. They’ve provided additional resources and insight to help us wade through the Epic engagement. They’re also very thoughtful with how they engage with key stakeholders—they’re responsive to our needs and always seek to provide peerless service.”
While UH officially closed the book on their Epic implementation in October 2023, the work was far from over for the Patient Access team. TruTeam’s consultants received multiple extensions as optimization began. “We were able to pivot quickly after Go-Live by leveraging that same team to apply some additional Epic enhancements,” said Darrington. And the results speak for themselves. Patient Access has been able to realize a 10% year-over-year increase in Scheduling Utilization. In 2024 through Q1, they’re trending almost 3% over the Epic Mean in Provider Utilization and 15% over the Mean in Referrals Retained. “And we have additional projects coming up that TruTeam is helping us get across the finish line,” Darrington shared.