Yale Medicine launched an exciting new era in patient access this winter and spring with the opening of the YM Coordination, Appointment, Referral & Engagement (CARE) Center—and in its first 3 ½ months of operation, the center has already produced noteworthy results.
Since opening its doors on Jan. 29, the CARE Center has demonstrated significant performance improvement. The rate of abandoned phone calls has been cut in half, and the time to reach a live agent is already well ahead of industry standards (29 seconds, down from over two minutes during the same period last year). Of the approximately 3,500 daily calls to the center, 80% reach a live agent in less than 30 seconds.
These early metrics support the YM CARE Center’s overall goal of providing patients with simple, supportive, and coordinated access to our world-renowned physicians. Through a single point of entry, ambulatory patients and referring providers are directed to specialty-specific staff at the center, who assist them with such services as ambulatory appointment scheduling, referral management, care coordination, nurse triage, and transition of care planning.
The center is located in newly renovated space at 25 Science Park, and features expanded hours of operation from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Departments are systematically transitioning to the YM CARE Center in a phased manner. Phase 1 concluded on May 14, with the addition of Ophthalmology to the CARE Center. The departments that have been integrated into the CARE Center to date are: Nephrology, Diabetes, Metabolic Bone, Orthopaedics, Pediatric medical and surgical specialties, Urology, Neurology, and Ophthalmology. Phase 2 will begin in the fall, and a third phase will follow, integrating the entire practice into the CARE Center over the next two years.
Positive Early Feedback
Leaders of the Phase 1 departments say the CARE Center has already enhanced the patient experience and created significant efficiencies for clinical faculty and staff.
With more than 3,000 patients and over 100 phone calls per day, the YM Diabetes Center, together with Nephrology and Metabolic Bone, had already developed a successful call center of its own. But the YM CARE Center has taken it to the next level, says Silvio Inzucchi, MD, director of the YM Diabetes Center.
“When Yale Medicine proposed using our call center as the initial group to transition to the CARE Center, we thought it was a win-win: maintain the quality we had come to expect and also grow the program to involve other departments,” Dr. Inzucchi says. “So, far, we’ve been very pleased. The CARE Center is doing a fabulous job for us—our patients are happy with the quick response and our practitioners and staff are thrilled with the support they are getting.”
In Orthopaedics, patients are also responding very positively, says Interim Department Chair Jonathan Grauer, MD. One of the advantages of the YM CARE Center is that it is open before and after regular business hours, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. “It has been working out very well for the CARE Center team to be available for these extended hours to follow up on referrals, answer questions, and confirm appointments,” Dr. Grauer says. “That has been wonderful.”
By locating all CARE Center teams in one place, the initiative is also breaking down walls between departments and encouraging staff to work together as a practice, Dr. Grauer says. “The transition has been much smoother than we expected. And I don’t think we’ve seen all the advantages that the CARE Center will bring over time, as the technology develops – it’s only going to get better.”
Among the many other benefits of the CARE Center are a new, more reliable phone system, and brand new facilities for CARE Center employees, notes Gary Desir, MD, chair of Internal Medicine and co-chair of the steering committee that has been overseeing the CARE Center project. When Dr. Desir visited the CARE Center recently, he was struck by the “great spirit” and enthusiasm of center staff.
Clifford W. Bogue, MD, chair of the Department of Pediatrics, says “Staff are extremely professional and a pleasure to work with, and the CARE Center is well organized — which has yielded positive early results for our department.”
Making the vision of improved patient access a reality involved collaboration and hard work among numerous partners from throughout Yale Medicine, Yale New Haven Health, and Yale University.
“We set out to create a better way for our patients to reach and engage with us—to ease their journey and enhance their experience,” says YM Chief Operating Officer Maryam Saeri. “In the process, we began a culture shift, introducing new and innovative ways of working together, creating partnerships that did not previously exist. We invested in new technologies and learned to better leverage existing ones. Our patients are already noticing; their response validates our assumptions and inspires us to continue."