The Queen’s Health System Garners Catalyst Award for Advancing Population Health

Health Catalyst presented The Queen’s Health System with the Catalyst Award in the category of Population Health at the Healthcare Analytics Summit 2024 (HAS 24) in February. The award recognizes The Queen’s Health System for the following noteworthy accomplishments:

• Achieving cost savings of $7.1 million.
• Enabling patients to spend over 2,000 days at home through a 76.1 percent reduction in inpatient days.
• Attaining a 71.6 percent reduction in inpatient admissions.
• Realizing a 15.9 percent reduction in length of stay (LOS).
• Successfully reducing 30-day readmissions by 37.1 percent.

When The Queen’s Health System identified that a small percentage of its patient population accounted for disproportionately high utilization of healthcare resources, they addressed the matter by developing an innovative care management program that offers comprehensive services and support to patients with complex medical and social needs. Since launching its pilot program to tackle these challenges, they have significantly reduced readmission rates and costs.

Addressing Disproportionately High Utilization of Healthcare Services

By decreasing LOS, The Queen’s Health System not only mitigated the risk of hospital-associated conditions and costs but also enhanced patient satisfaction and bed availability. Their efforts are especially notable given that the average length of hospital stays has increased by about 10 percent at the end of 2021, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leveraging insights from its analytic platform to manage payer data and patient flow through data-informed capacity management plans, The Queen’s Health System adopted a unit-based model of care. They also leveraged teams for patient flow improvement and executive steering, clarifying their roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority.

To manage patient capacity at each stage, they developed specific actions: standard operations, pre-surge, and specific-surge levels. These actions aimed to increase bed capacity and address the volume and acuity of patients requiring admission.

Additionally, geographical hospitalist assignment and standardized daily interdisciplinary rounds were implemented, which enabled teams to consistently work towards safe discharge at the standard daily discharge time by addressing any outstanding patient needs, planning for discharge logistics, medication requirements, and post-discharge follow-up plans.

Furthermore, the health system established a centralized command center, staffing it with new patient flow coordinators. The coordinators actively engaged with care teams to identify and resolve barriers in patient flow while serving as a point of contact for escalated issues.

Reducing Length of Stay Through Targeted, Coordinated Care

The Queen’s Health System also acknowledged that unnecessary hospital readmissions are often linked to the patient’s discharge plan. They attribute part of their LOS success to improving discharge planning for patients more likely to over-utilize healthcare services. Indeed, those experiencing mental health crises or homelessness are more frequently readmitted to the hospital due to illness exacerbation, the health system found. 

Their improvement efforts focusing on care coordination and wrap-around services for critical patient populations have contributed to reduced discharge delays, decreased LOS, and cost savings. The Queen’s Health System has made significant strides in addressing its patients’ needs, earning them high marks in the industry.