St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y., has proven that improvements in patient care quality, safety, throughput and experience, with significant resulting financial benefits, can happen much sooner than hospital leaders might think.

The hospital launched system-wide transformation initiatives that embrace a unified patient-first culture and efficient communication and handoffs across the hospital, using the Care Logistics hub-and-spoke care delivery system. The hospital realized significant patient flow and throughput improvements within the first six months, and in less than two years have documented remarkable achievements:

St. Joseph’s Hospital—Care Compass transformation initiative:

• Realized an annual financial benefit of $11.6 million

• Reduced average acute length of stay by nearly a half day, from 5.63 days to 5.17 days

• Reduced ED wait times by 75 percent

• Significant increase in case-mix index

• Better employee and physician engagement

• Reduction in premium labor costs

“Care Compass guides our decisions and care activities to put the patient first, always,” said Kathryn Ruscitto, president and CEO of St. Joseph’s Health when explaining how the Care Logistics model and focus on positive culture have established big gains quickly in patient care and hospital performance. “This transformation initiative continuously points us to our true north, ensuring that St. Joseph’s can reliably deliver outstanding care to our community now and in the future.”

“There’s a misperception that transformative improvements in care delivery and hospital performance take many years,” said Karl Straub, president of Care Logistics. “St. Joseph’s validates the blueprint for rapid time-to-value in every metric that matters to hospitals, putting them in the healthiest operational and financial positions to provide the best care for their communities.”