Practice of the Year, Beverly Hospital Emergency Department

With patient visits surging, a tight-knit emergency department achieves impressive gains in quality and patient experience.

EMERYVILLE, Calif (October 21, 2022) — At the annual Vituity Partnership Meeting, clinical leaders from the emergency medicine practice at Beverly Hospital in Montebello, California, were recognized for improving care despite a sharp increase in visits.

Beverly Hospital serves an area just east of downtown Los Angeles. Its Vituity-managed ED sees about 38,000 visits per year—a number that has grown steadily in 2022.

Despite these challenges, the department has made strides in efficiency and care quality. Throughout this busy year, it implemented a number of initiatives aimed at improving patient experience and outcomes. Examples include provider-only discharge, code surge(s), patient callbacks, leader rounding, and increased throughput in Rapid Medical Evaluation®. (RME is Vituity’s proprietary patient-flow solution, which has been shown to significantly decrease wait times.)

As a result of these initiatives, the department was able to keep wait times low—and even improve them—in the face of rising volumes. In 2022, length of stay for discharged patients dropped to less than 140. During the same period, time to provider stayed below 10 minutes, and the walkout rate remained consistently below 1%.

“Vituity is proud to recognize the achievements of the Beverly Hospital emergency medicine team,” says Gregg Miller, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Vituity. “When you consider they actually clinical outcomes while caring for hundreds more patients a month, you start to appreciate the magnitude of what’s happened here.”

Clinical leaders recognized for their achievements include Vituity Regional Director Jeff Tsai, MD; ED Medical Director Joseph Chan, MD; ED Nursing Director Charlene Chu, RN; ED Assistant Directors Raul Lopez, MD, and Pranav Desai, MD; and ED Advanced Provider Lead Gary Felix, PA-C.

“When I reflect on the year and how we got here, I think it’s important to recognize what an exceptional team this is,” says Chan. “I’ve worked on several ED teams, and this one is by far the most energized and collaborative. We hold joint staff meetings with nursing and also have joint social events so everyone gets to know each other outside work. One of the benefits of having a very tight-knit team is that our ED family uplifts each other, and we are able to maintain a positive attitude where it is fun working together even on incredibly busy tough shifts."

“I’d also like to recognize the tremendous support we’ve received from the Beverly Hospital administration. They truly embody a patient-centric approach to care and fully support all of our initiatives. They trust the ED physician and nursing leadership to execute our hospital’s mission and give us the flexibility to implement creative solutions.”

Says Miller, “No one would have blamed them if they had slowed down their improvement initiatives when volumes started rising. But their dedication to patients and one another meant they pushed through.”

About Vituity

For nearly 50 years, Vituity has been a catalyst for positive change in healthcare. As a physician-led and -owned multispecialty partnership, our 5,000 doctors and clinicians care for nearly 8 million patients each year across 450 practice locations and nine acute care specialties.

Vituity’s acute focus and compassionate care are the driving forces that place us at the heart of better care. Our clinicians and practice management leaders develop front-line solutions for healthcare challenges that improve quality and have a direct positive impact on millions of lives nationwide.

Our services span the entire Acute Care Continuum, integrating emergency medicine, hospital medicine, critical care, anesthesiology, acute psychiatry, neurology, acute care surgery, telehealth, post-acute care, and outpatient medicine. Partnering with hospitals, health systems, clinics, payers, employers, and state and local government, our footprint continues to rapidly expand. Learn more at vituity.com.

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Beverly Hospital Emergency Department Receives Vituity’s Practice of the Year Award

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