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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Virtual Care and Improving Emergency Department Flow at Ochsner Health with Dr. Lisa Fort
00:15:14
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- [00:02]
A
Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings healthcare leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues facing the industry. And every year, those conversations shift in profound and unexpected ways. This April, more than 3,500 healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's 16th annual meeting. 795 elite speakers will offer new lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what comes next. Join us April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalview.com and click on the events tab in the upper right.
- [00:38]
B
This is Laura Dearda with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Lisa Fort, Assistant Chief Medical Information Officer and system medical Director of the Virtual Care center at Ochsner Health. Dr. Fort, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:52]
C
Thanks for having me, Laura. Very happy to be here.
- [00:54]
B
Absolutely. And you know, I'm looking forward to our conversation because I know you are a very technology forward health system and you're leveraging technology and virtual care in very unique ways, and so it'll be exciting to dig a little bit deeper into that. But before we do, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and Ochsner Health?
- [01:11]
C
Absolutely. So I am an emergency physician. That's my clinical background. Still practice in emergency medicine, typically work about a shift a week. I lovingly term it my living laboratory and still really enjoy patient care. It's very grounding. Back to the mission. I currently hold the roles of assistant chief Medical Information Officer for our inpatient services. We have a large integrated delivery network, you know, more than 45 hospitals. And so my responsibilities include our areas including not just the emergency department, but our inpatient settings, our critical care settings, our procedural settings, kind of everything that happens within the hospital itself. And my additional role is as our system medical director of our Virtual Care center, which is our centralized, corporate, quote, unquote, care traffic control center that focuses specifically on centralized monitoring as well as resourcing. Like our virtual nursing program.
- [02:09]
B
Absolutely. Wow, that's incredible to hear and, you know, helpful to understand everything that you're accountable for and how that all works together from the clinical side as well as the technology and leadership side, too. I'm curious, from the last year or so, could you tell us about the most important initiative that you led? What did you do and what were the results?
- [02:28]
C
We had a really interesting project that we kicked off actually in October of 2024. But last year was really the first year, first full year that was in place. The challenge that we were presented with was the problem of ED overcrowding and our observed versus expected ED utilization. Our patient population, we're located in the deep south. We have facilities, especially our inpatient facilities throughout Louisiana, into Mississippi, even a little bit Alabama. And so we have tremendous challenges in terms of patients ability to access medical care, especially preventative medical care. And you know, it's even worse in rural areas where we have many health deserts. And so what we saw was, you know, a lot of patients by default were just having to go to the ED to get care for routine things and not just their, you know, bonafide emergencies that they would need to be there for. And so we were challenged by our executive team to think about an innovative way to be able to address that problem. Problem. And what we came up with was a virtual emergency department where we have a board certified ed physician working with a navigator. And we do this seven days a week, 365 days a year. We're able to take escalations from various different places in our organization, including our nurse on call line, Oxford on call, as well as our primary care clinics, our urgent care clinics and our specialty clinics to help to be a layer of, to be able to determine if a patient may have the ability to get what they need in an alternative setting. And so patients that historically would have just been referred to the ED were able to say, oh, you know, we can, we can help to facilitate some of the care orchestration they may need to be able to get maybe a medication that they need or we can do a virtual visit with them and do some, you know, additional assessment of what might need to be taken care of for the patient and then also provide direct linkage to care within or without our system so that we can make sure we get them the appropriate follow up. So the first year results were pretty exciting. We saw more than 16,000 patients through that program and we're able to keep about 65% of them out of the emergency department and provide alternative care for them. And we were also able to link about 82% of those patients to care so that they got their follow up steps and the things that we actually recommended they do. And so I think that shows that patients are really engaged with this. They believe that the advice we give them is the right advice and they're able to complete that. So very exciting as a whole and something we look to build in 2026.
- [05:05]
B
That's amazing to hear. And you know what fantastic results you were able to bring within. Just making a few adjustments and thinking about the preventative care side. I'M curious how much of a culture mind shift change was that or was it really pretty simple to get the team on board and make those changes once you decided to have that?
- [05:26]
C
I think that there, you know, we had all these different stakeholders in this and it was a huge cultural shift. We spent a lot of time, you know, talking about things and talking to people about what some of the challenges they they saw were within the existing system. One of the most important things was just making this super, super easy for people. And so the way it works is essentially we take messages through our EHR and we're able to respond almost immediately. I think we did a time track where it was something like 40, 40 seconds. And so really g time linkage to assets that help them to manage patients was was really key. It has to be easier than what they were doing or people won't do it and they have to see the benefit for themselves and for their patients. So I think that as we started we had really heavy uptake and use and our, our key user group is still our Oxyron call line. Of course, patients who are experiencing bonafide emergencies, they have encrusting chest pain or having stroke symptoms or sense of ED without that intervening step, we don't want to delay care. And then patients who have really low acuity things that can just be scheduled to see their primary care doctor, their pediatricians, we still, you know, that all still happens, but it's all those patients in the middle. And so a lot of it was just describing how we can do this safely and effectively. And then I think we got people to get on board.
- [06:46]
B
Got it. That's helpful to understand. Thank you so much for describing that process and you know, helping dig a little bit deeper there. Now, looking ahead, what are some of your big priorities as well as headwinds.
- [06:56]
C
For 2026, apart from just ED utilization? I think one of the things we did really well last year was we were able to impact our framework of inpatient quality. So everything from hospital acquired complications, a hospital acquired infection, so you know, when patients come into the hospital and they fall or they may acquire pressure injury or they develop a catheter associated urinary tract infection. So truly, by leveraging the virtual care center as a whole, which is, you know, a set of different people working in a centralized fashion to be able to help, to screen through patients, patients and put things into place to help them to get out of the hospital quicker and without experiencing any harm, has been a really big initiative and we were able to really kind of blow away our targets and our goals. I think that as we look at 2026, it's about how to bring all these things together so that we're looking at it as a continuum of care for patients and not in little buckets. So to the patient, their care is going to be everything from when they see their doctor, to how they manage their chronic disease, to how they take their medication, to how they communicate with the health system and not just their physician, but all the people that they interact with. And then when they do have something that's going on that is, you know, out of their sort of normal, expected course, how do we then provide links to them so that we have clean handoffs and we don't have fragmented care across that journey? So when a patient needs to go to the hospital, you know, how do we make sure everybody on their, their care, their existing care team knows about it? How do we smoothly get into the hospital, take care of them well and, you know, get them home as quickly as possible or where, wherever they need to best be, and make sure that we don't sort of drop the ball at each step in those processes. And so I think that when you have a large system with a lot of different competing priorities, sometimes it's difficult to tell that story. But if you reframe it from a patient centric point of view, everyone has experienced a time where perhaps they or a loved one has gone through those different stages. And I think that frustration resonates with people. And we can see certainly outcomes that we wouldn't want if we don't make sure that we make all that a lot more clean and smooth. And so I think technology is going to be extremely enabling in that space, especially within those transitional moments. And we're able to really leverage some of those centralized resources with the technology layered on top to communicate and even evaluate what is the best thing for an individual. So I think that's what we're looking at doing. It's, you know, I think we, we expect it to be challenging, but I think we're prepared for it in 2026.
- [09:36]
B
That makes a lot of sense. I, you know, think that's really exciting prospect and definitely appreciate the idea of, you know, kind of bringing that story and telling that story with your team and so they can, you know, really understand what you're trying to do and how important it is down this path. So, you know, the community has access to care and you're able to continue to do things efficiently, effectively. What do you think the hardest thing you'll have to do in the coming.
- [10:03]
C
Year will be the hardest thing always to me is just picking the things that you want to work on. We don't have infinite resources. I do think that automation, technology, all the exciting things that are happening with artificial intelligence and, you know, the agents we get to work with as sort of trusted digital companions in our care delivery are going to help us with that. But, you know, ultimately I think that you only have so much even with those enablement layers. And so I think we just have to make sure that we tie everything back to what are our north stars, what are we looking at from aspirational goal perspective? So, you know, how do we impact the things that matter to our patients the most and our system the most so that we can stay, you know, financially well positioned for what's coming in the next couple of years? Another thing that I think is difficult to manage, especially on the technology side, is it's just happening at such a rapid pace that we're asking people to think about things different and practice differently. And, you know, that doesn't just, that doesn't just apply for physicians or clinicians. It's true for everyone who's kind of done things almost by brute force, I think, over the past several decades in health care. And so, you know, change is hard, but showing people, again, the most important thing is what is in it for our patients and how do we make people's lives better and get them out of work on time, get them home with their families. And so I think that we have to be able to enable our workforce of the future with the technology of today. But how to do that is challenging and it's going to be really different for different types of groups that we need to be cognizant about. So, but you know, what's exciting about that is now we have this whole new set of assets and resources that we can use to take better care of people and we can take some of that burden, some work, the kind of the death by a thousand clicks, I call it, and shift that off of our, you know, the backs of our, our people. And so even though it'll be hard, I think it's very, very exciting and looking forward to seeing it play out.
- [12:05]
B
Absolutely. I definitely understand how challenging that can be. And I think looking at AI technologies, there's so many different opportunities that come available. And I can imagine from your perspective, you're getting pitches and new technologies every single day. So making sure that you've got that focus truly is important. And I know every healthcare minute and dollar is precious. And thinking through that, LE can really be grounding, it seems like. Now, before we wrap up, I wanted to ask as well, about growth. Where do you see some of the best opportunities for organizational growth in the future?
- [12:39]
C
So I think this kind of goes back to that same concept of the patient journey across the different types of the care continuum. And so looking at patients that are just seeing their doctor doing their regular visits, getting their preventative care, how do we make that really smooth and easy for people? And I think that in that space, what I see is being able to apply some large scale population models to be able to determine, okay, so you may have large group of patients and a certain percentage of them have different stages of chronic disease, which are the patients that really need to be able to see a specialist for that particular disease state. And at what point do we have the resources to match to it? And then how do you think about, you know, providing virtual or telemedicine access or even asynchronous access to be able to deliver care and help to guide local care teams like patients, primary care physicians, to be able to manage everything? Up until that point, I think medicine's been incredibly reactive historically, and we need to be able to use these real assets that we see to create systems that are looking at the future and matching patients to the resources they need the most and the ones that need it the most at the right time. So truly, it all just comes together to think about how do we provide that orchestration layer and care traffic control to patients in a way that partners with them and does it in a way that seems right? Because it's not going to be one size fits all to everybody. We can't just force people to use particular types of apps or not everyone's going to feel comfortable using digital tools in the same way. But how do we make sure we're thinking thoroughly about, you know, who does benefit from it and how we get it into their hands as quickly as possible?
- [14:33]
B
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. It is so, so helpful to think through that perspective and keep that in mind. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today, Dr. Ford. This has been such a fascinating and inspiring conversation, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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C
Thank you so much, Laura. It was great talking to you and looking forward to being up in Chicago for Becker's event in the next couple of months in April.
- [14:56]
B
Oh, absolutely, yes. I know you'll be speaking on a panel and we'll be able to continue much of this conversation and touch on many of these themes, too. It's always such a fun opportunity to see people in person and, you know, really get to know them a little bit more deeply. So I'm looking forward to that as well. Thank you.