Coordinated EM Care Leads to Better Patient Care

On January 4, 2014, a joint venture was created with AHN to provide emergency medicine services to address the needs and expectations of the partners – Allegheny Health Network Emergency Medicine Management. Over the next three months, 95% of the physicians and APPs were retained and clinical operations began on April 1, 2014. During the next 12 months, four additional emergency departments and a nocturnist program were added to the organization. Meanwhile, individual emergency department efficiency increased while significantly reducing the AHN system financial support of clinical operations. None of which could have been accomplished without the experience and expertise, including multiple interventions from the ECHO Consulting Group. Over the past six months, we have added the first Integrated acute care site which seeks to align care from the patient’s bedside at home, through the ED and hospital and through to the skilled nursing facility. All the while, throughout the AHNEMM group there has been an unwaivering focus on improving emergency department throughput times and patient satisfaction.