In the hospital, bad process = chaos. Turns out, bench press and bed placement have more in common than you'd think. From teenage sons who hate warm-ups to transfer centers that carry the real load, this blog is for anyone who's ever said: "Why are we doing it this way?" Spoiler: you’re probably lifting with your back.

Critical Access Hospitals: Healthcare’s Swiss Army Knife

Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) provide lifesaving care where the nearest big-city facility might be hours away, serving as both medical centers and community pillars. This blog explores why these small-but-mighty hospitals matter, how they adapt to serve their communities, and why they need our support now more than ever. Dive in to discover how CAHs are keeping rural America healthy—one patient at a time.

Bridging the Gap in Healthcare Disparities

Dagot’ee, my name is Gabriel Baca, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, and I am privileged to discuss The Arizona Resource Equity and Access Coordinator Hub (AZ REACH), shedding light on how it has profoundly impacted my tribe and how it has shaped my career in medicine.

HELP WANTED: Rural Healthcare Champions

Overwhelmed by a lack of resources and over-complicated processes, rural health practitioners are all too often finding themselves unable to provide the level of care required of their patients who are entering the hospitals sicker than ever. This is my healthcare journey and how I've uncovered my relentless commitment to improve equity of access to care for all patients.

I’m Sticking to This Hope

Meet Jack, an alcoholic living in Klamath Falls, Oregon who is trying to begin his journey to recovery, but in turn helps us better understand how broken the behavioral health system is.

The Impact of the Nursing Shortage in Hospitals Today

Increased nursing ratios. Decreased patient satisfaction. 40-hour wait times. But what can be done to help fix these issues?

COVID’s Impact on the Nursing Shortage Crisis

Have you ever wondered what it was really like to be a nurse during COVID-19? Partnering with LinkLive, our Chief Nursing Officer answers this question and also explains what led to many nurses joining the Great Resignation, along with what it will take to get them back.

Looking Back: How Today's Nursing Shortage Came to Be

How did we get to the nursing shortage we are at today? Surprisingly, it wasn’t due to COVID-19, but the pandemic certainly didn’t help.

This Is Why I Do What I Do

One gas station. One grocery store. One stoplight. After being raised in small-town Kent City, Michigan, our Chief Nursing Officer writes about how growing up in rural America gave him one mission – to simplify healthcare for all.

We Futureproofed Healthcare

We partnered with vendors; we refined processes and operations; we left no stone unturned. While we still had a long way to go, after one year of operations under this new scope and authority, we grew our outreach by 14% and accepted more than 2,500 additional patients through our virtual front door, adding $14,000,000 dollars to the organization’s bottom line.

Adventures as an Amateur Craftsman

Those in healthcare know that we consistently find exposed leaks and clogs when reviewing throughput, but how do we repair the piping that is patient flow?

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Patient throughput is at the forefront of nearly every significant challenge we’re facing as an industry today. We need efficiencies; we need data; we need improvement; we need a plan.

Perfection

“We will be perfect in every aspect of the game. You drop a pass, you run a mile. You miss a blocking assignment, you run a mile. You fumble the football, and I will break my foot off in your John Brown hind parts and then you will run a mile. Perfection. Let's go to work.” — Coach Herman Boone, Remember the Titans. What if the public healthcare consumer had the same expectations of us as Coach Herman Boone did of his football players? Would they be wrong?

Simplifying Tomorrow's Healthcare, Today

Step aboard with Blackbox, where the skies are blue and the future of healthcare is bright.

My New Lunchbox

In my new job, I get to see what healthcare heroes are doing at the frontline. I get to see the staffing challenges that nurses are enduring- what used to be the unthinkable is now the norm. The administrators get it, they aren’t disconnected, and they’re desperately trying to help. Nurses today are taking care of twice the number of patients they had previously cared for, and they’re literally doing it in a heroic fashion.

The Data Puzzle

Let me warn you - healthcare data puzzles rarely play fair. They are notorious for arriving at the party without all their pieces, some forget their boxes, and a very small percentage brings a clear picture of what you’re trying to solve. If you’re like me, those challenges only make data puzzles more enticing. How many pieces are in your puzzle, begging to be put together to show a clear picture of patient throughput?

Yes...but not yet

There is no better time in healthcare than now. It wasn't that long ago that I stood at the ICU bedside, exclaiming to my colleagues that "This is a hospital, not a hotel..." (insert cringe) as we complained about needy patients or needy family members. Boy was I wrong! Little did we know that when we selected healthcare as a college major, that we were in fact selecting hospitality. With that, we must think and act like we're in the service industry. We would never imagine a concept of "yes, but not yet" in a service industry such as auto sales, so why do we accept it in healthcare?

Start with a conversation, not a proposal.

Tell us where patients are getting stuck. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help.

Request an Assessment

AZ REACH Surpasses Milestone of Transferring 20,000 Patients in Three YearsUniversity of Arizona, R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy

State Trauma Care Committee update: MOCC preliminary awards, incl. Patient Flow Innovations (Blackbox)Indiana Department of Health (in.gov)

AZ REACH 2024-25 Survey ResultsAZ REACH

AZ REACH marks one-year anniversary with nearly 6,000 rural patient transfersUniversity of Arizona, R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy

AZ REACH program passes 3,000 patient transfers markUniversity of Arizona Health Sciences

Arizona Surge Line: An emergent statewide COVID-19 transfer service with equity as an outcomeFrontiers in Public Health

Health officials launch Arizona Surge LineKYMA News

The Marriage of Acute Care and Community Care (contributor: Charley Larsen)American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL)

Perspectives from our team

I Lift Weights (And It Changed How I See Hospital Throughput)

Critical Access Hospitals: Healthcare’s Swiss Army Knife

Bridging the Gap in Healthcare Disparities

HELP WANTED: Rural Healthcare Champions

I’m Sticking to This Hope

The Impact of the Nursing Shortage in Hospitals Today

COVID’s Impact on the Nursing Shortage Crisis

Looking Back: How Today's Nursing Shortage Came to Be

This Is Why I Do What I Do

We Futureproofed Healthcare

Adventures as an Amateur Craftsman

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Perfection

Simplifying Tomorrow's Healthcare, Today

My New Lunchbox

The Data Puzzle

Yes...but not yet

Start with a conversation, not a proposal.

AZ REACH Surpasses Milestone of Transferring 20,000 Patients in Three Years
University of Arizona, R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy

State Trauma Care Committee update: MOCC preliminary awards, incl. Patient Flow Innovations (Blackbox)
Indiana Department of Health (in.gov)

AZ REACH 2024-25 Survey Results
AZ REACH

AZ REACH marks one-year anniversary with nearly 6,000 rural patient transfers
University of Arizona, R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy

AZ REACH program passes 3,000 patient transfers mark
University of Arizona Health Sciences

Arizona Surge Line: An emergent statewide COVID-19 transfer service with equity as an outcome
Frontiers in Public Health

Health officials launch Arizona Surge Line
KYMA News

The Marriage of Acute Care and Community Care (contributor: Charley Larsen)
American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL)