Colorado’s Wound Wizard Uses Contexture Magic to Reduce Referral Wait Times
Published on August 5, 2024
When Dr. Traci Kimball embarked on the journey of setting up her new practice in Arvada, Colorado named The WISH Clinic, she encountered a significant challenge that many healthcare providers face: prolonged referral wait times. “This issue was primarily due to the incomplete patient information that accompanied referrals, with many only including their name and date of birth,” said Dr. Kimball.
Determined to overcome this hurdle, Dr. Kimball revisited a familiar and trusted solution — Contexture’s PatientCare 360 portal. She gained instant access to a wealth of patient information by integrating the Contexture portal into her workflow. This comprehensive data source included details of hospital visits, treatments, operations, medications and more, all available at her fingertips, whether in the office or visiting patients in the field.
Access to healthcare data is crucial for specialists handling new referrals, however, this data is siloed within various electronic health records. Patients wait longer as specialists resort to manually faxing requests for medical records to compile a complete patient profile. The outdated process is resulting in a costly issue where 18% of Medicare patients are readmitted within 30 days, incurring over $17 billion in expenses, partly due to these delays.
Medical specialists like Dr. Kimball — also known as ‘The Wound Wizard’ — provide evidence-based specialty care to patients with acute and complex diseases. Dr. Kimball’s expertise is with patients who’ve experienced burns, peripheral vascular diseases and both chronic and surgical wound complications. To evaluate, diagnose and begin a treatment plan, it’s imperative that she receives and has access to a patient’s full healthcare record. 
In the United States, one out of every three patients is referred to a specialty provider every year and wait times for patients to see a specialist have increased to 26 days, on average.
Per the National Library of Medicine, “The health system must support the referral process by maintaining efficient information exchange and patient flow, especially given the broader need for the coordination of primary and specialty care.”
Contexture — Arizona and Colorado’s health information exchange — has been paving the way for more efficient and effective healthcare systems over the last 15 years, connecting with over 98% of regional hospitals to enable the real-time exchange of patient health information between providers, payers and community health organizations.
The impact of this strategic move was profound. Dr. Kimball not only enhanced the quality of care she provided but also achieved a remarkable reduction in her patients’ wait times. On average, the wait times plummeted to just 72 hours, a testament to the power of immediate and complete access to patient data. Contexture solutions not only facilitated a smoother workflow for Dr. Kimball and her team but also ensured that her patients received timely and informed medical attention.
Contexture is dedicated to supporting doctors in their mission to care for patients, providing essential insights and information that medical teams need to make informed decisions.
Congratulations to the Wound Wizard’s new practice and continued success in telehealth services for skin-injured patients. Contexture looks forward to your new strategic partnerships with Clara Care Inc. and Rocky Mountain Senior Care/Physician Health Partners.
Learn more about Contexture’s family of solutions by exploring the website or emailing getconnected@contexture.org.
[Prolonged referral wait times] is primarily due to the incomplete patient information, with many [referrals] only including their name and date of birth.
- Dr. Traci Kimball
