Not all growth is good growth | Michelle Winfield-Hanrahan, Chief Clinical Access Officer, UAMS | Ep. 9

Most specialty groups treat growth as the goal and figure the operations will catch up. This episode is about why that order is backwards. Host Joe Zboch of Hatch sits down with Michelle Winfield-Hanrahan, Chief Clinical Access Officer at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, to work through one idea she opens with and never lets go of: not all growth is good growth. They talk through what it takes to actually support volume, the capacity, the workforce, the financial backing, and the quality of care, before anyone says yes to it. You'll hear how she breaks down a problem when ten people in a room can't agree on what it is, why a referral is a wealth of data most groups ignore, and what changes when you treat the front door as a growth driver instead of the cost of doing business.ㅤ👤 Guest BioMichelle Winfield-Hanrahan is Chief Clinical Access Officer and Associate Vice Chancellor for Access at UAMS, Arkansas' only academic medical center and the state's only adult Level 1 trauma center. There she oversees enterprise access, care management, utilization, transfers, clinical command operations, and oncology nursing. She came to the role from a nursing foundation and years as a healthcare access consultant, which is where she watched a lot of the patterns she talks about play out across institutions.ㅤ📌 What We CoverWhy not all growth is good growth, and the four things volume has to line up with before it counts: capacity, workforce, financial backing, and quality of care. ㅤThe hidden gap that sinks a rollout: a group opens a new practice but nobody budgeted the two people needed at the registration desk to check patients in. ㅤHow Michelle triages a problem when a room can't agree, by starting with what most people name rather than jumping straight to the goal. ㅤThe people, process, technology order she works in, and why technology is sometimes the wrong place to start. ㅤThe legacy-work test: figure out where a workflow came from, then ask whether it's still relevant today. ㅤWhy a referral is a wealth of data about what your community and referring providers actually think of you. ㅤHer 24-hour rule: every referred patient gets reached out to within a day, and why closing the loop with the referring provider keeps volume coming. ㅤThe failed phone line: a competitor's payer went out of network, the institution blasted flyers and a dedicated number, then put one person on a line taking 100 calls an hour.ㅤ🔗 Resources MentionedService Fanatics: How to Build Superior Patient Experience the Cleveland Clinic Way by James Merlino, MD (the book Michelle's team was reading) ㅤMyChart, referenced as one of the channels for reaching referred patients ㅤHatch, for scaling referral operations to drive growth and efficiency