One of the biggest challenges for hospitals across the U.S. is adding capacity to serve more patients with a higher degree of quality outcomes. Sacramento-based Sutter Health is cracking the code to care for patient volume growth, and their solution is simple.
“The best way to think about growth and value is through the lens of our mission, which is patients first and people always,” said Kiran Mysore, chief data and analytics officer at Sutter Health. “There are several areas of focus to help with this. The first thing is we think about how to improve access to care. The problem we face is too many people experience too many hurdles in getting the care they need, and Sutter is leading the way in removing as many barriers to access as possible.”
The health system is leveraging technology and the digital front door to empower patients with self-scheduling.
“Our work actually helped us serve more than 100,000 new patients across our system last year,” said Mr. Mysore. “We’re doing that by improving our online scheduling capabilities. Last year we saw an increase of 27% in online appointment scheduling and that is really great.”
Beyond self-scheduling, Sutter expanded the clinical workforce by hiring more than 1,000 more physicians and clinicians last year and keeping turnover low. The IT team supports these efforts by leveraging technology to improve clinician well-being.
“Digital tools are really helping our workforce and essentially making their lives easier,” said Mr. Mysore. “A good example is the fact that last year, we saved a million hours of our workforce time through efficiencies in our digital tools.”
Looking ahead, Sutter is investing in ambulatory growth with an ambitious, billion-dollar program adding 76 new sites of care and more than 160 hospital beds. This year, the health system has already brought on several hundred additional physicians and grown its academic partnerships.
“To complement the ambulatory expansion, we’re rolling out a new fully integrated digital care delivery model we call Sutter Sync. This program actually allows our patients to track and manage chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes at home, and they can do this on their schedule in their house and in concert with a dedicated care team that can provide timely support and treatment adjustments,” said Mr. Mysore. “Our investments in ambulatory expansion, coupled with our digital tools like Sutter Sync, are really helping care for more patients in more places.”
Digital technology powered by artificial intelligence is driving success, and Mr. Mysore sees AI continuing to play a big role in health system transformation. Organizationwide, teams are able to improve care and streamline workflows.
“As we transform all of this easy work, we’re actually going to go deeper, maybe toward personalized treatments that will actually truly change our patients’ well-being,” said Mr. Mysore. “I’m excited about the opportunities for growth in the future. I think, not just at Sutter, but healthcare as a whole has a unique opportunity to serve patients better with technology, with AI, with data, to elevate the scale and improve the quality of care. Our growth journey is a great example of this.”
