Customer Story | Feb 2025
St. Clair Health’s Seamless Shift to the Cloud
Customer profile:
Intuitive tools and dashboards with less manual reporting
Get new team members up to speed in days with minimal training
Eliminate spreadsheets and focus on higher-value tasks
Access clean, real-time data with greater accuracy
St. Clair Health, a 329-bed independent hospital in southwestern Pennsylvania, has maintained its position as a beacon of patient safety and care. With an extraordinary record of 20 consecutive ‘A’ grades for hospital safety from The Leapfrog Group, the organization ranks among the top 1.1% of hospitals in America. However, their commitment to excellence goes beyond accolades and extends to an unwavering dedication to innovation and improvement.
In 2023, St. Clair Health chose to modernize their provider credentialing processes by transitioning from its long-standing use of Cactus to the cloud-based symplr Provider platform. The shift allowed the hospital to replace resource-heavy, manual workflows with automated solutions that enhance efficiency and accuracy. This initiative was led by Laurel J Yungwirth, CPCS, CPMSM, MHA, Manager of Medical Staff Services, whose vision and strategic leadership turned what could have been a challenging journey into a resounding success.
As one of Cactus’ first customers for several decades, St. Clair Health faced challenges with updates and maintenance. “Keeping up with the updates and services of the older system was a big part of the decision to switch,” Laurel explained. Despite the product retaining a familiar look and feel, it was the back-end technical support and reduced upkeep requirements of symplr Provider that made the transition so appealing.
symplr Provider brought with it not only technological improvements but meaningful enhancements in operational efficiency. St. Clair Health gained access to features that reduced manual labor and streamlined daily workflows. The addition of widgets enabled Laurel’s team to work more autonomously. “The widgets help with data integrity,” she said. “For example, I don’t have to send individual reports to my staff every day. They can simply check their dashboard to see their assignments. It saves so much time.”
Laurel also noted she no longer had to rely on internal resources for system upgrades, resulting in “bugs being fixed quicker, less testing, and huge reductions in the manual time staff spent on maintenance.”
Thanks to the transition, St. Clair Health has seen a marked improvement in data transparency hospital-wide. Their system now clearly displays appointment dates and current privileges for providers throughout the organization.
The symplr Provider platform also transformed the enrollment team’s workflow. Previously reliant on cumbersome spreadsheets, the team now leverages the platform’s advanced tools to operate more efficiently. This shift has brought consistency to their processes and eliminated the need for manual data manipulation.
Additionally, the exclusion screening management feature, which enables checks across multiple databases, was a “great enhancement,” according to Laurel. She highlighted the difference it’s made in keeping compliance processes rigorous and thorough.
Migration projects can be daunting, but for St. Clair Health, the transition from Cactus to symplr Provider was surprisingly manageable. “We didn’t have to do full data mapping,” Laurel shared. “Everything stayed in its own home, which allowed us to perform a heavy lift of cleaning up bad data before migrating. We were able to easily identify and exclude outdated or incorrect information, so it didn’t transfer into the new system.”
The journey was also marked by consistent, personalized support from symplr. Laurel lauded the team’s monthly check-ins led by Jill Gunn, their dedicated Customer Relationship Executive, saying, “The one-on-one support made all the difference. We always felt heard, and any feedback we had was not only listened to but acted upon—or an explanation was provided if it wasn’t feasible. You never feel like your concerns are falling on deaf ears with symplr.”
Another upside was that even staff members with minimal credentialing experience adapted quickly to the system. Laurel recalled that two new hires, with no prior experience, were able to use symplr Provider with ease after being given a simple database guide. For seasoned staff members, the learning curve was equally as short. “It only took them a day or two to get used to the system, and now they love it,” she said.
Laurel explains one of the biggest hurdles throughout the migration was navigating the naming conventions in different modules—a common issue when terminology evolves between platforms. She explained, “Every implementation has a problem with verbiage—customers calling things different names… that was our biggest struggle. But symplr helped us keep track of which was which.”
For Laurel, symplr isn’t just a software provider but a trusted partner in healthcare innovation.
When asked to rate her overall experience with symplr, Laurel didn’t hesitate. “Overall, I love symplr—I’m a solid 10,” she said. “I recommend them to everybody.”
Conclusion
For organizations considering the leap from Cactus to symplr Provider, Laurel has a few key pieces of advice:
St. Clair Health’s successful migration to symplr Provider illustrates not only the ease of transition but also the transformational improvements that are possible with the right partner. For hospitals and healthcare systems still on the fence, Laurel offers this closing thought: “Know your processes and trust the symplr team to help you find more efficient ways to carry them out.”
Request a custom walkthrough and discover how our provider credentialing software improves your onboarding and compliance workflows.
What to expect:
reduction in credentialing time
Faster payer enrollment
faster committee review time
