Clinical Integration: Better Outcomes & Patient Experience
- Better interaction between emergency medicine and hospital medicine clinicians can improve the patient experience and reduce healthcare costs.
- According to research, care transitions are vulnerable points where errors can occur.
- Many healthcare organizations are integrating their emergency medicine and hospital medicine teams to prioritize a patient-first approach, especially during transitions.
Better clinical integration between emergency and hospital medicine teams is crucial for a superior patient experience while also curbing costs. This approach tackles care transitions—a frequent source of medical errors—head-on. Integrating teams fosters collaboration, reduces delays, and accelerates recovery. Delve into how organizations are transforming their acute care delivery, focusing on the alignment of people, processes, and technology, leading to improvements in patient safety and outcomes. News Directory 3 highlighted the importance of integrated care models.Discover what’s next in acute care management.
Integrating Emergency, Hospital Medicine Improves Acute Care
Updated May 28, 2025
Better interaction between emergency medicine and hospital medicine clinicians can improve the patient experience and reduce healthcare costs. A lack of communication can lead to patient uncertainty and compromise patient safety.
According to research, care transitions are vulnerable points where errors can occur. As many as 60% of medication errors happen during these times. A more deliberate approach to care integration can foster better collaboration, reduce delays, and speed up recovery, according to Tony briningstool, MD, chief executive officer, Sound Emergency Medicine, and Mihir Patel, MD, chief executive officer, Sound Hospital medicine.
Many healthcare organizations are integrating their emergency medicine and hospital medicine teams to prioritize a patient-first approach, especially during transitions. Hospital medicine, while relatively new, is rapidly expanding. Recent studies indicate that dedicated hospitalist groups achieve better clinical and financial results, Patel said.
Both emergency medicine clinicians and hospitalists manage patients in the hospital and determine the appropriate post-acute care setting. Emergency and hospital medicine teams face increasing workloads and expectations due to CMS Five-Star rating systems and other pressures. “There are lots of checklists and quality work, in addition to delivering patient care,” Patel said, adding that these factors create challenges related to autonomy, scheduling, and turnover.
Integrating emergency and hospital medicine can be arduous due to issues related to people, processes, and technology. Misalignment between medical directors and service lines, team cohesion, and team engagement are people-related challenges. Responsibilities, workflows, and outcomes must be aligned regarding processes. “Without well-defined processes between departments, chaos occurs at the time of admissions,” patel said. “Patients suffer, and communication barriers can lead to clinically worse outcomes.”
Technology can be both helpful and problematic. Physicians need timely access to comprehensive data. Problems arise when there is a lack of accountability or coordinated handoffs between emergency medicine and hospital medicine clinicians.
Sound Physicians recognizes that better team alignment reduces inefficiency and unnecessary testing. Structured communication during clinician-to-clinician handoffs can help teams understand and align during care transitions.
To break down organizational silos, Sound offers training boot camps for emergency and hospital medicine medical directors. Patel described them as mini-MBA programs. “Medical directors have solid clinical knowledge, but many lack the operational and financial rigor needed to drive outcomes,” he said. ”Boot camps set expectations and drive engagement.”
Sound also conducts monthly performance reviews where clinical, operational, and nursing teams review key performance indicators and examine root cause analysis to challenge the status quo and improve processes. Effective use of point-of-care technology is also essential for driving better patient outcomes. Briningstool said technologies must be used in a patient-centered way to create efficiency and reduce workloads, not increase confusion and fragmentation of care.
Sound runs over 45 integrated emergency and hospital medicine programs, which have shown enhancement across various metrics, including patients who left without being seen, ED admit length of stay, percentage of observation patients discharged, average length of stay, and patient satisfaction.
Sound uses a balanced scorecard to evaluate emergency and hospital medicine throughput and the patient experience. This tool identifies silos and processes where change is needed. Briningstool believes the balanced scorecard creates organizational alignment and helps focus everyone’s priorities.
Sound implemented a multidisciplinary rounding process at the point of admission at a Level 1 trauma center. Initially,the center averaged 16 to 24 hours of bed hold time per patient in the ED before moving to the inpatient unit.
“By bringing our best practice processes to the ED and meeting admitted patients where they were, we accelerated care decisions, enhanced care coordination, and reduced admit hold times in the ED by over 40%,” Briningstool said. “It was transformational.”
What’s next
Hospitals and health systems can continue to improve acute care delivery by focusing on intentional clinical integration, addressing obstacles related to people, processes, and technology, and using innovative strategies to enhance coordination and communication between emergency and hospital medicine teams.