Balancing Capacity and Quality of Care in a Changing Healthcare Landscape | Webinar | May 2026

Learn how to accelerate patient flow, reduce variation and strengthen care coordination by empowering nurses with clear, standardized workflows.

This session explores the role of nurse autonomy and standardized workflows in advancing both patient flow and quality outcomes. Drawing from operational leadership in transfer and command center environments, it will highlight how consistent processes, such as bed assignment approval and rejection, and a clear understanding of the “why” behind workflows can support more timely decision-making, reduce variation, and improve coordination across the care continuum.

Learning Objectives

• Examine the role of nurse autonomy in supporting patient flow and care quality: Explore how enabling timely, informed nursing decisions within structured workflows contributes to improved coordination and outcomes.
• Understand the value of standardized workflows in reducing variation and enhancing efficiency: Review how processes such as approve/reject support clarity, consistency, and more reliable throughput.
• Identify the connection between operational practices and quality performance metrics: Discuss how aligned workflows can influence key outcomes, including readmissions, patient experience, and hospital star ratings.y.

CECs: 1

By attending this program, offered by HCMC, participants may earn up to 1 ACHE Qualifying Education Hour toward initial certification or recertification of the Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) designation.

Speaker:

Jessica Crum, DNP, MBA, BSN

Dr. Jessica Crum is a healthcare operations executive specializing in patient flow, transfer center strategy, and enterprise capacity management. She currently serves as Executive Director of Epic Applications and Transfer Operations at Forrest Health. In prior leadership roles, she led the expansion and centralization of a multi-hospital transfer center, achieving 30% growth in referrals, a 33% increase in completed transfers, and a 13% improvement in completion rates. She has partnered with multiple health systems to stand up centralized command centers and implement discharge milestone frameworks to improve throughput and patient access. Dr. Crum is an active mentor within the Hospital Capacity Management Consortium (HCMC) and frequently speaks on patient flow strategy, command center operations, and health system capacity optimization.

On-Demand Access

Only HCMC members will have access to the on-demand recording of this webinar. Non-members will be able to view the LIVE session only and will not have access to the recording afterward.

Join HCMC for on-demand access >>