President's Circle Honorees: Dr. James Kim & Angela Besiant

Building on our commitment to provide the highest quality care and an excellent patient experience to the communities we serve, our Hospital was proud to announce a new 24-hour Provider on Arrival program in the Emergency Department (ED) in September of 2018.

What does Provider on Arrival mean?

It means that on any given day, when one of more than 250 patients walks into our ED, one of the first people they will see and speak to is an emergency medicine physician, who is now stationed at the triage window.

The new program expedites care and reduces wait times to see a physician in our Emergency Department, which cared for almost 100,000 patients last year.

This initiative was first envisioned in May of 2018 by Dr. James Kim, the medical director of our Emergency Department and Angie Besiant, the director of our Emergency Department.

After a thorough brainstorming session, an idea came to them on how to reduce wait times – why not station an emergency medicine physician right at the triage window?

They drafted a proposal and shared it with key medical committees and Hospital leadership, and in just a few short months, we became the first Hospital in the region to implement this new program.

Since September, wait times to see a physician have been reduced from an average of 40 minutes to just 8 minutes.

Patients now register with the Admitting team, provide a brief medical history and their complaint to the triage physician and a treatment plan is started immediately.

In looking at recent patient experience survey responses, Angie and Dr. Kim were pleased to report that patients feel more satisfied and reassured when they see a physician almost immediately upon arrival.

We greatly thank Dr. Kim and Angie for their New Idea. Because of their collaboration, we have been able to implement this program and bring expedited care and a higher level of Customer Satisfaction for patients seeking emergency care at our Hospital.