The Care Coordination Network at Summa Health System

Summa Health System
Akron, OH
461 Beds

The Problem
Summa Health System serves a five county region in Northeast Ohio including seven owned, affiliated and joint venture hospitals, a regional network of ambulatory care centers and a multi-specialty group of over 240 employed physicians.

The Solution
Summa started the Care Coordination Network to help improve on the longstanding concern for improved patient coordination with the long term care facilities in the surrounding counties. The network was established to improve access to post-acute beds, facilitate the transfer of patients across the continuum and optimize the combined expertise of the providers to achieve the desired clinical outcomes. Summa contacted all of the area skilled nursing facilities to gauge their interest, and together with representatives from 28 skilled nursing facilities, ambulance services and the agency on aging in the area, created a task force with three main objectives: (1) Standardize the skilled nursing facility referral process, including evidence-based guidelines for determining patient needs and a reference tool for discussing options with patients; (2) Create a clinical and educational subcommittee to address priority areas for improving care transitions; (3) Design and then evaluate various outcome measures to monitor members and overall net¬work performance to develop best practice tools in the future.

The Result
This partnership increased the visibility of the area skilled nursing facilities to hospital case workers and improved the overall sense of understanding and collaboration between the parties where there used to be a large lack of knowledge. The streamlined processes and protocols improved the transitions between the facilities. For example, there was a reduction in broken appointments and improved schedule compliance for same-day surgery and outpatient testing among post-acute patients.

This case study was originally featured in the HPOE guide: 'Caring for Vulnerable Populations,' published January, 2012.