Patient Safety Begins with Access

Patient Safety Begins with Access

Patient safety is often associated with what happens inside the exam room, operating room, or hospital bedside. But what if one of the greatest threats to patient safety occurs long before a patient ever receives care? In this thought-provoking episode of All-Access Pass, Elizabeth Woodcock sits down with Dr. Victor Hassid, Associate Vice President of Access Services and Professor of Plastic Surgery at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, to discuss his groundbreaking JAMA article, Patient Safety Begins with Access. Together, they explore the powerful argument that delays, barriers, and failures in patient access should be viewed not simply as operational challenges, but as patient safety events. Dr. Hassid shares how fragmented referral processes, scheduling barriers, authorization delays, and care coordination failures can directly impact diagnosis, treatment, and patient outcomes. The conversation also examines the concepts of visibility, accountability, high reliability organizations, and the critical role of data in identifying and preventing access-related harm. Tune in to hear discussions on patient safety, access-related harm, high reliability principles, referral and scheduling barriers, access performance metrics, patient advocacy, health equity, and the future of treating access as a core component of quality and safety in healthcare.

Access in the Wild: Conversations from the Future of Access

Recorded live at the 2026 Patient Access Collaborative Symposium in Columbus, Ohio, this special episode of the All Access Pass Podcast brings listeners into the conversations shaping the future of patient access. From nurse triage and children’s access to AI, physician engagement, operational strategy, and patient experience, leaders from across the country reflect on the challenges, ideas, and innovations redefining healthcare’s front door — and the next generation working to move it forward.

Spotlight on OSU Wexner Medical Center: Clarity is Everything

In this episode, we feature The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center [https://www.linkedin.com/company/18516804/admin/page-posts/published/#], host of the Patient Access Collaborative’s 2026 Symposium, as they share how they transformed access from fragmented visibility to enterprise accountability. By focusing on the behaviors that drive performance, aligning incentives, and evolving their access center, OSU has built a model that connects strategy to execution.  Guests James Kern [https://www.linkedin.com/company/18516804/admin/page-posts/published/#], MBA, Senior Director of Access and Capacity Management, Dr. Jonathan Parsons [https://www.linkedin.com/company/18516804/admin/page-posts/published/#], Medical Director of Ambulatory Services and Executive Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs, Department of Medicine, Kristin Geiger [https://www.linkedin.com/company/18516804/admin/page-posts/published/#], Associate Director of Patient Access, and Lois Bernhardt [https://www.linkedin.com/company/18516804/admin/page-posts/published/#], DPT, MBA, Director of Capacity Management, join to elaborate on their great work.  This conversation offers a powerful look at how access can serve as a lever for growth, patient experience, and system performance - and what it takes to make that vision real. Tune in to hear how one leading health system is redefining access through behavior, data, incentives, and technology.

The Rise of Ambulatory Capacity Management

In healthcare, access to care ultimately comes down to one fundamental challenge: balancing supply and demand. In this episode of the Patient Access Collaborative podcast, Executive Director Elizabeth Woodcock speaks with Chris Profeta, Senior Director of Research and Analytics, about the emergence of ambulatory capacity management as a critical discipline within patient access. Together, they reflect on the rapid growth of the field - from a time when only a handful of professionals focused on capacity management to today’s sold-out roadshows and growing national attention. The conversation explores why traditional market dynamics don’t function in healthcare, how technological advances like automated waitlists are reshaping access to care, and why understanding true patient demand remains the next frontier for health systems.

Seeing Access Through a Shared Lens: Using the Patient Access Collaborative's Group Assessment to Understand the Current State

What if patient access isn’t just an operational problem—but a shared organizational belief system? In this episode of All Access Pass, host Chris Profeta, Senior Director of Research and Analytics at the Patient Access Collaborative, sits down with Austin Loomis MHA , AVP of Ambulatory Access and Analytics, Mandy Newman, MAAL, Vice President of Ambulatory Operations, and Catherin Mims, MD, Vice President and Associate Chief Physician Executive for the Ambulatory Practice at OU Health. Together, they unpack a new evolution of the Patient Access Framework: a group-based assessment that captures how access is perceived across an entire organization. With more than 20 leaders—from finance and HR to physician chairs and executive leadership—participating in the assessment, OU Health gained a rare, enterprise-wide view of access. The conversation explores what happens when those perspectives align, where they diverge, and why those gaps often represent the greatest opportunities for system improvement. Along the way, the group reflects on why access blind spots persist, how shared language changes strategy, and what it means to truly measure access as an enterprise responsibility. Tune in to hear how group assessments can surface hidden friction, strengthen cross-departmental alignment, and turn access from a siloed function into a shared organizational priority—covering the evolution of the Patient Access Framework, the rationale behind group scoring, leadership alignment, organizational blind spots, and practical insights for system-level access improvement. Woodcock, E., Profeta, C. A framework for patient access management: consensus from a Delphi panel of US health system leaders. BMC Health Serv Res 25, 524 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-025-12561-8 [https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-025-12561-8]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12913-025-12561-8 [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12913-025-12561-8]