Vituity Transforms the ED at Riverside University Health System

Recipient of Vituity’s 2018 Site of the Year Award, Riverside University Health System, drives facility-wide change - improving hospital efficiency, quality of care, and team culture.

October 23, 2018 – EMERYVILLE, CA – Vituity, a leading physician-led and -owned healthcare delivery organization, has announced Riverside University Health System—Medical Center as its 2018 Site of the Year Award.

The award recognizes the hospital system’s substantial improvements in key performance indicators such as reducing time to provider rates (TTP), left without being seen rates (LWBS), and turn-around time to discharge rates (TAT-D), while also dramatically improving the team dynamics and culture of the health system.

The Site of the Year Award also recognizes the demonstrable improvements to patient care by evaluating RUHS—Medical Center’s operational performance and assessing the initiatives implemented at the institution, as well as factoring in the scores from a survey completed by the hospital’s executive leadership team.

In the last year, the collaborative approach taken by physician leaders and nurse leaders at RUHS –Medical Center transformed the operations in the emergency department. The changes throughout the Medical Center, including the implementation of an innovative Hip Fracture Pathway, demonstrate the impact that physician and nursing leadership can have. In addition, Vituity created a collaborative Emergency Department Operations Committee, and began more reliable data collection, reporting, and accountability.

Vituity’s unique, integrated care approach with physician partners, advanced providers, nurses, and administrative staff led to impressive improvements including reducing TTP from 67 minutes to 15 minutes, reducing admission times from 12 hours to 2 hours, and reducing TAT-D by 100 minutes. The Riverside University Health System team maintained these improved metrics throughout a record winter flu season.

“We are very pleased with the progress over the last 18 months; Vituity’s team approach to leadership and management has transformed our emergency department,” said Jennifer Cruikshank, Chief Executive Officer of RUHS Medical Center. “Patients are getting better care, metrics have never looked better, and our teams have never been happier—even during a historic winter flu season.”

Cruikshank said the organization values Vituity’s strong leadership and sees opportunities to grow those practice lines over time.

Gregg Miller, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Vituity, says that “Riverside University Health System is a longstanding Vituity site with committed partners, many having more than 20-30 years of investment. They have a rich culture, have recruited well, and value partner involvement. Maybe even more impressive is the resiliency they’ve shown in the face of some serious challenges.”

Dave Birdsall, MD, Vituity’s Chief Operations Officer, attributes this improvement to “a strong, aligned leadership team of nurses, physicians, and hospital administrators who have completely transformed Riverside University Health System to better serve its community with high quality, safer patient care.”

About Riverside University Health System

Riverside University Health System (RUHS) includes a 439-bed Medical Center, 11 Federally Qualified Health Centers, and several primary and specialty clinics throughout Riverside County, California. With more than 6,000 staff members and over 125 years of experience serving Riverside County communities, RUHS continues its commitment to and legacy of delivering exceptional, compassionate care with a focus on public health, behavioral health, community wellness, and medical education. Visit www.ruhealth.org to learn more.

About Vituity

As a physician-led and -owned, multispecialty partnership, Vituity has proactively driven positive change in the business and practice of healthcare for over 45 years. Our more than 3,000 doctors and clinicians provide a wide range of integrated acute care expertise. Serving over 6.3 million patients annually at 250 practice locations, our footprint continues to rapidly expand across the country as we partner with and support hospitals, health systems, clinics, payers, and employers. Vituity’s acute focus and compassionate care are the driving forces that have placed us at the heart of better care.

Our services span the entire acute care continuum including: emergency medicine, acute psychiatry, acute neurology, hospital medicine, critical care, anesthesiology, acute care surgery, telehealth, post-acute care, and outpatient medicine. To learn more about Vituity, please visit www.vituity.com.

Contacts

Riverside University Health System
Kimberly Trone—Public Affairs
951-867-1776
k.trone@ruhealth.org

Vituity
Erin Hyatt – VP, Marketing
919-604-7612
Erin.hyatt@vituity.com

Partnering to improve patient lives

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