Strong Memorial Hospital Strengthens Compliance & Security with symplr Access
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, New York founded in 1926, academic research hospital
HOSPITAL BEDS: 830
EMPLOYEE COUNT: 8,500+
VENDOR COMPANIES: 378 registered
REPS CREDENTIALED: 969
ANNUAL REP CHECK-INS: 2,795
BUILDING: A series of buildings with an adjacent children's hospital.
“With symplr, we didn’t just get an out-of-the-box credentialing solution, we got a credentialing partner. One as focused on keeping our facilities compliant and secure as we are, and is responsive to our needs. With symplr Access, we can confidently meet the requests of the Joint Commission auditor with accurate and reliable access reports.”
-Chloe Alexander, Supply Chain Manager
Strong Memorial Hospital, is the largest facility in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and is one of the nation’s premier teaching and research hospitals. With a 24/7 trauma and burn center, multiple research programs, as well as the new adjacent Children’s Hospital, Strong Memorial needed an easy-to-manage vendor credentialing program to help meet
their compliance goals and ensure patient safety.
THE CHALLENGE
When Strong Memorial began preparing for a visit and audit from The Joint Commission, they quickly
realized their homegrown, manually-managed credentialing system could no longer meet their
compliance and security needs, particularly when it came to access controls for the Operating
Room (OR).
Although there are multiple entry points into the facility, only two main entrances are supported with front desk staff. There is a high volume of incoming traffic including vendor reps, traveling nurse services, research personnel, and other visiting groups regularly coming onsite.
The high traffic, coupled with additional requirements for OR access, meant Strong Memorial needed a solution with the flexibility to assign different credentialing requirements to each type of visitor, one that would enable staff to easily verify credentials and access authorizations, and then get that visitor checked-in quickly.
The SYMPLR VENDOR CREDENTIALING SOLUTION
When Chloe Alexander, Strong Memorial’s Supply Chain Manager, realized that all the facilities within
URMC needed a more comprehensive credentialing solution, she turned to symplr. After evaluating
symplr’s flexible credentialing capabilities and seeing how large the in-house team of credentialing
and research experts is, she signed on to begin a multi-facility deployment of the symplr Access
Management solution.
Implementing symplr Access allowed the supply chain team to customize and tailor the credentialing requirements of each type of visiting group, which made the process of getting credentialed easier and more efficient for everyone coming onto facility grounds.