SHM Converge Scientific Abstract ePoster Gallery-Access Throughput Physician (Atp): A Novel Physician Role to Streamline Outside Hospital Transfers and Enhance Hospital Flow

Pdf Summary

Penn Medicine developed the Access Throughput Physician (ATP) role to improve hospital flow and manage increasing pressure from high occupancy and interfacility transfer demand. ATP is a physician embedded in system capacity management who performs real-time clinical review of outside-hospital transfer requests. The role helps determine whether tertiary-level care is truly needed, identifies in-network alternatives when appropriate, and prioritizes patients based on clinical urgency while they await disposition.<br /><br />The project collected standardized data on referring location, requested service line, clinical indication, ATP intervention type, and final disposition. Although the slide deck does not provide detailed numerical results, it indicates that 1,053 transfer requests were reviewed and 102 involved ATP interventions. The figure titled “Acceptance to Bed Arrival Time After ATP Intervention” suggests that ATP may have helped streamline the transfer process and reduce delays.<br /><br />The initiative was motivated by evidence that higher hospital occupancy is associated with worse outcomes, including increased mortality, and by growing national stress on bed availability and transfer systems. By using expert physician review at the point of transfer request, ATP aims to improve triage, better match patients to appropriate facilities, and support more efficient use of scarce inpatient resources.<br /><br />Reported future directions include expanding ATP review to additional specialties, developing predictive models to identify the best receiving facility, creating dashboards for real-time throughput optimization, standardizing acceptance criteria across the health system, and educating service lines. Key limitations noted were the single-center, retrospective design, the small proportion of reviewed transfers receiving intervention, provider variation in acceptance practices, and limited outcome measures.

Asset Subtitle

Asad Arastu

Meta Tag

Author List Amanda Whartenby, Anahita Molayi, Anthony Mazzeo, Asad Arastu, Gillian Naro, Joshua Davis, Joyce Kim, Neil Fishman, Robin Wood, Timothy Karutz, Victor Cotton, Vincent Collins, William Schweickert

Category Research

Concept Access Throughput Physician

Concept Interfacility Transfer Request

Concept Triage

Concept Hospital Flow

Concept Real-Time Clinical Review

Distinguished Non-Finalist

Presenter Organization University of Pennsylvania

Presenting Author Asad Arastu

Track Quality Improvement

Keywords

Penn Medicine

Access Throughput Physician

ATP role

hospital flow

interfacility transfer

capacity management

transfer triage

bed availability

physician review

throughput optimization

Access Throughput Physician

Interfacility Transfer Request

Triage

Hospital Flow

Real-Time Clinical Review