On Friday, August 17, Mary McElroy, Community Hospice & Palliative Care's Senior Vice President of Hospice Services, shared her expertise at the American College of Health North Florida Chapter's Executives Panel Discussion: "Improving the Bottom Line by Optimizing Patient Throughput."

Invited to the panel by Caroline Sarratt, MSHA director of the Jacksonville Local Program Council of American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE's) North Florida chapter, Mary focused on the role of palliative care in strategies for engaging interdisciplinary teams.

Mary joined Bradley Talbert, president and CEO of Memorial Hospital Jacksonville. 

Topics of the panel discussion included:

Tactics for improving emergency department throughput

  • Realigning the operating room schedule to support throughput
  • Optimizing bed specialty configuration
  • Strategies for engaging interdisciplinary teams
  • Roles of care management, hospitalists, and others in patient throughput
  • Reducing practice variation
  • Hospice Strategies
  • Advanced Care Management to avoid ER diversion
  • Strategies for Reducing Readmission

Attendees from across greater Jacksonville included physicians and healthcare executives and students from ACHE at the University of North Florida.