Optimize the referral interactions between referring physicians and UT Medicine Cardiothoracic Surgery.
Minimize difficulties associated with finding appropriate faculty surgeon oncall.
Minimize ability for referring physicians to circumvent existing systems in place.
We anticipate pushback from faculty and staff normally encountered in making changes to existing systems.
Leadership is supportive of the need to make changes.
I believe if we are able to make our call schedule work easily and get appropriate on-call faculty on the phone reliably and promptly, the work will serve as a template for UT Medicine.
What Interventions Can We Make That Will Result in an Improvement? Outline the changes that will be implemented by the UT Medicine Call Team and Cardiothoracic Surgery. Determine findings from your process analysis tools, decision-making tools and relevant organizational factors.
Follow Script: Dr. X is not on call tonight. Dr. Y is covering. Would you like me to contact Dr. X anyway, or is this something that can be referred to the on-call surgeon?
Patient Questions: What kind of durgery? What hospital? What doctor? When was your surgery? What are your present symptoms? How long experiencing symptoms?
Send an email to Dr. X documenting the call.
Implementing the Change • Led Meeting with UT Medicine Call Center on December 18th with Call Center Director Debbie Gold and Supervisor, April Lopez. • Asked John Calhoon, MD & HelenMari Merritt, MD to illustrate how call center operations play a critical role in the quality of care patients receive.
Expansion of Our Implementation Act There is potential to expand the intervention strategies across the clinical practice as there are cost savings, measures of efficiency and increased effectiveness. There is an opportunity to improve customer service to referring physicians and patients, optimizing speed and response time.
Report "Clinical Safety & Effectiveness Cohort # 13"