Highlights | Managing patient transfers
- The UW Medicine Transfer Center evaluates and coordinates patient transfers from one hospital to another based on their clinical needs.
- A successful partnership with service line leaders, physicians, nursing teams and other clinical staff helps with safe and efficient patient transfers.
- The Transfer Center works 24/7 to help patients get the care they need.
The UW Medicine Transfer Center is UW Medicine’s point of contact for hospitals wanting to transfer urgent and emergent patients in the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho region to UW Medicine hospital systems.
The Transfer Center is staffed with a team of nurses and transfer center coordinators who are trained to evaluate the incoming transfer request and determine which UW Medicine hospital, clinical service and physician can best care for the patient being transferred. In addition, the team coordinates specialty consultations, clinic appointments in lieu of transfers, air transport with Airlift Northwest and more.
Understanding the Transfer Center’s work
The Transfer Center is responsible for helping patients at a crucial point in their healthcare journey.
The decision to transfer a patient from one hospital to another hospital is based on the patient’s clinical needs, the capacity of referring and accepting hospitals, the approval of an accepting physician and other factors. When it’s determined that a patient should be transferred to a UW Medicine hospital, a Transfer Center nurse and coordinator will help coordinate all aspects of the patient’s transfer.
This thorough process includes facilitating the transfer of a patient’s clinical documentation, which could include digital radiology images in addition to electronic medical records, to ensure the continuity of their care. Transfer Center nurses also connect UW Medicine providers with the patient’s referring provider and keep UW Medicine providers and staff updated regarding the patient’s condition and transport.
“The primary goal of the Transfer Center is to serve as a single point of entry into UW Medicine for patients with life-threatening and complex care needs who are receiving care at an outside hospital but need a higher level of care than that hospital can provide,” says Renee Paquet, director of the Transfer Center.
Transfer Centers aren’t unique to UW Medicine; most hospitals have a central call center that helps manage patient transfers. These centers are now more valuable than ever, as hospitals across the state continue to experience capacity constraints due to high patient volumes and reductions in select services driven by pandemic-related financial losses.
As UW Medicine continues to address these difficulties within our hospital system, the Transfer Center plays a key role in coordinating patients’ transfers into, between, and out of our health system. Paquet is proud of the Transfer Center team’s work to provide high-quality, coordinated care for patients transferred into our health system.
Key to successful patient transfers
The Transfer Center uses data to refine and inform processes that facilitate safe and efficient transfers into UW Medicine hospitals. The center also relies on its partnerships throughout the system.
“We are so thankful for the partnership and engagement of service line leaders, physicians, nursing teams and medical directors across the system, we truly couldn’t do this important work without them,” says Paquet.
Ultimately, the Transfer Center continues to provide fast and effective services so patients can get the care they need — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
