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Preventing Readmissions Starts Before Discharge: The Role of Nurse-First Triage
March 25, 2025
Hospital readmissions are a persistent challenge for health systems across the country. Nearly one in five Medicare patients is readmitted within 30 days of discharge,
5 Tips To Optimize Your Transfer Center
March 21, 2025
Optimizing your health care transfer center is a crucial step in enhancing patient flow, reducing wait times, and improving overall care coordination.
Featured posts
Behavioral Health Collaboration Reduces Emergency Department Length of Stay by 64%
Focus on timely transfer for acute behavioral health patients improves patient safety and outcomes
A recent collaboration between Conduit Health Partners and Mercy Health — Springfield Regional Medical Center has significantly streamlined care transfers of behavioral health patients from the emergency department (ED) to appropriate care settings.
Optimize Transfer Center Practices to Improve Patient Acquisition Whitepaper
Health care is changing. Fast. But one constant remains — the challenge of managing the flow of patients in and out of your hospital or health system.
Even before COVID-19, patient transfers were problematic for most hospitals and health systems. Then, the pandemic added more strain. Finding the best way to handle patient flow has become increasingly difficult, with higher patient volumes and staff shortages.
CHRISTUS Health and Conduit Health Partners Expand Access to Care
Collaboration with CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic brings after-hours nurse triage to CTC communities
CINCINNATI, Ohio and IRVING, TX (Oct. 9, 2023) — CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic, the medical provider group of CHRISTUS Health, is collaborating with Conduit Health Partners to bring after-hours telephonic nurse triage care to their patients through Conduit’s nurse-first model where callers have immediate,
NEWS & ARTICLES
Conduit Addresses the Nursing Shortage
The Great Resignation has led to millions of Americans re-evaluating their jobs and trying to find what they want in life. Nurses are at the top of this list. Nursing turnover has never been higher. Engagement and retention for nurses are incredibly important. Leaders at Conduit are actively creating solutions to increase the sense of belonging and job satisfaction that are the building blocks of keeping valuable and talented nurses on our teams.
Conduit Health Partners and Nurse Disrupted Partner to Expand Services to Homeless and Other Underserved Populations
We are excited to partner with Nurse Disrupted to offer our 24/7 Nurse-First Triage solution. Recently, Nurse Disrupted wanted to expand their nursing services to homeless shelters to help address the needs of underserved populations. To help them achieve their goal, they brought in Conduit Health Partners.
Cheryl Dalton-Norman named Health Care Heroes Award Finalist
We are proud to announce that Cheryl Dalton-Norman, President Conduit Health Partners, is a finalist for the Cincinnati Business Courier’s Health Care Hero Award in the Health Entrepreneur category. This recognition honors individuals who have improved the quality of health care in Greater Cincinnati through their expertise, research and innovation, management skills, entrepreneurial efforts, community work, and patient care.
Looking to Outsource Your Patient Transfer Services? Here are 3 Financial Benefits
There are many reasons you may be considering outsourcing certain functions like patient transfer services. In addition to having more time to focus on your most critical role of providing high-quality patient care, there are financial benefits when you outsource with a trusted partner like Conduit Health Partners.
Issues that are Impacting Every Aspect of Healthcare Today
Since 2020, the Covid-19 response has been a priority not only for healthcare organizations but for all organizations great or small. The need to ensure safety in the workplace has been a priority. Early in the pandemic, Conduit pivoted to support communities, health systems and employers. We offered information lines, participated in planning for hospital capacity management and load balancing, we created programs for vaccination supports as well as for the purpose of screening associated with the ability to return to work safely.
Improving Patient Care and Operational Efficiency with Rightsourced Patient Transfer
Every member of a health system’s team, often comprising hundreds of highly trained professionals, is enabled by the competency of their colleagues, and the effectiveness of operational staff who carry out their specific functions to the best of their ability. Beyond safeguarding profitability, maintaining operational dexterity and efficiency is crucial to assuring every patient has the best possible outcome as they navigate their way through your health system.
Overcoming the Great Resignation of Nurses
The high volume of Americans who have quit their jobs since last year has been popularly coined as “the Great Resignation,” and the health care industry has been hit especially hard. According to Morning Consult, 18% of health care workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic, and 19% of those who have kept their jobs have considered leaving.
Nurses make up a large bulk of those leaving due to extreme stress and burnout, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Turnover is higher than ever, particularly for those nurses in the first year on the job. Though the outlook seems bleak, it doesn’t have to be. More and more health care organizations are seeking solutions to increase the sense of belonging and job satisfaction that are the building blocks of retaining valuable and talented nurses and attracting new ones to the field.
Improve Patient Flow In and (when appropriate) Out of Your Hospital
Patient transfers were challenging before COVID-19, but the pandemic has put more strain on hospitals and managing patient flow has become increasingly difficult given higher patient volume and staff shortages. Even before COVID-19, staff shortages prevented health systems and hospitals from dedicating the appropriate staff to the transfer process. COVID-19 has exacerbated this problem, resulting in multiple staff members spending precious time making dozens of calls within and outside of their hospitals and health systems to find the right placement for a patient needing to be transferred.
Communication Strategies to Support Safe, Seamless Patient Transfers
Every minute counts when it comes to patient transfers. A safe and seamless transfer depends on a timely and efficient process from the moment a transfer is initiated until a patient is located at the right place to get the right level of care. Effective communication is the foundation to a successful patient transfer, especially if a patient is being transferred between different hospitals or health systems. Unfortunately, communication breakdowns — especially between different hospitals or health systems — may result in laborious patient transfers that can jeopardize safety and quality.
Standardization of Patient Transfers to Support Optimal Patient Care
COVID-19 has exacerbated already strained processes for transferring patients in and out of hospitals. Given a higher volume of patients needing specialized care coupled with ongoing staffing issues plaguing health systems nationwide, the lack of standardization for transferring patients has serious consequences.
Transfers are initiated when a hospital does not have the capacity or capability to treat a patient. However, without a standardized transfer process within and outside health systems and hospitals, the risk of moving a patient may outweigh the risk of caring for them at the originating hospital, even in a setting that lacks the ideal space, equipment or personnel.
Patient transfer troubles are not new, yet the pandemic has overwhelmed hospitals like never before. Patient volume poses increasingly significant transfer challenges and hospitals and health systems should prioritize standardization now before the next crisis hits.
Lessons from Conduit’s Pivot to Remote Work
Conduit Health has always been ahead of the curve on business needs. Looking back to January of 2020, we were operating as a traditional in-person health call center. We could see the value of having a remote work option and wanted to offer that to our associates, so we began working on policies, procedures, and developing technologies to make that goal a reality. We expected to have our first fully remote associate position in May of 2020.
Dalton-Norman featured on Becker’s Healthcare discussing the Conduit Patient Transfer Center
The pandemic has changed many aspects of how we look at patient transfer service processes. Listen to this recent Becker’s Healthcare podcast featuring Conduit’s President Cheryl Dalton-Norman and Jeffrey DiLisi, MD, President and CEO of Roper St. Francis Healthcare, who discuss how Conduit’s unique service offerings transformed care at Roper St. Francis Healthcare.
NEWS & ARTICLES
Patient transfer center
24-7 nurse triage
24/7 nurse-first line improves clinical outcomes for one of Ohio’s largest health insurance companies
Health concerns don’t stick to a 9-to-5 schedule. Medical Mutual sought a better solution to provide its members quick access to reliable clinical advice, any time of the day.
How to Reduce Avoidable Visits to the Emergency Department
Too many people face the unfortunate scenario of getting sick outside their doctor’s office hours. Lacking other options, some may head to the emergency department before their situation gets worse.
Health concerns don’t stick to a 9-to-5 schedule. For employers, physician practices, health systems, and other organizations, a 24/7 Nurse Access Line is an important solution that can help many of your members avoid costly visits to the ED.
3 reasons your company should offer this employee benefit
A comprehensive employee benefits package — including one that offers convenient health care services — plays a big role in recruitment, retention and workforce satisfaction. There’s one service in particular that you should include in your employee benefits package: a 24/7 Nurse Access Line.
Happy Nurses Week
Enjoy this short video we created to celebrate all the fabulous nurses out there. We appreciate the work you do to improve the health care and lives of the people we serve.
Meet Heather Kelsey, Director of Triage and Virtual Care
Heather Kelsey is the Director of Triage and Virtual Care at Conduit Health Partners. In her role, Heather is responsible for strategic and operational leadership, day-to-day management, and oversight of Conduit Health Partners’ Nurse Triage and Virtual Care Center teams. She also collaborates with other Conduit leaders to develop new strategic services and process improvement strategies.
Meet Sr. Doris Gottemoeller
In honor of International Women’s Month, we are proud to honor Sr. Doris Gottemoeller.
Sr. Doris is a member of the Conduit Health Partners and Bon Secours Mercy Health board of directors and vice-chair of Bon Secours Mercy Ministries. In her 61 years of religious life, she has served universities, health systems, seminaries and high schools.
patient outreach and engagement