Building Community as a Strategic Advantage in Patient Access

By Molly Siegel, MPH, Senior Associate, Patient Access Collaborative

Health system leaders are grappling with an urgent set of questions:
How will we adjust to 30% staffing constraints? How do we recover millions in missed revenue? How do we deliver on equity? How do we ensure technology helps rather than hinders?

For those of us in patient access, the answer is resoundingly clear: Access is the answer.

At the Patient Access Collaborative (PAC), we’ve seen that the systems best equipped to navigate these challenges aren’t just investing in new tools or dashboards—they’re building communities. Cross-functional, data-driven, and mission-aligned access communities are becoming the cornerstone of effective health system strategy.

Access as Mission Infrastructure

A repeated refrain throughout the Patient Access Collaborative’s Medical Director Roundtable was:

“When access works, healthcare works. When it doesn’t, nothing else can.”

That insight has become more than a motto—it’s a north star. In many institutions, access is being reframed not as a back-office function, but as the connective tissue between mission and margin. That’s why PAC-member health systems like Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Baylor Scott & White Health are appointing dedicated Medical Directors of Access and establishing medical group councils focused exclusively on improving entry points to care.

Building Cross-Functional Alignment

At Baylor Scott & White Health, the Medical Group Access Council and accompanying access standards are helping drive governance, standardization, and shared understanding across diverse stakeholders—from clinical operations and template builders to market leaders. This council also trains clinic teams on scheduling utilization and provides targeted personnel support for “access hot spots” identified by new dashboards.

Access community-building isn’t theoretical—it’s embedded in the daily rhythms of improvement.

“We built a repeatable departmental engagement strategy to optimize ambulatory provider schedules and incorporate…decision trees,” one system shared. “The goal is standardization with flexibility—and visibility.”

Shared Tools, Shared Conversations

One key theme from our roundtable was the importance of shared metrics. The best dashboards don’t just monitor—they catalyze conversations. Across health systems, we heard leaders using these metrics to drive collaboration:

• External new visit request volume (as a demand measure)
• Scheduling rates at Day 0, 3, 14, and 20
• New patient lag (calendar days)
• Calendar days to next available appointment (by service/site)

These metrics provide the scaffolding for peer learning and shared accountability.

As one medical director put it:

“There are a few metrics we look at and focus on weekly…for the entire enterprise but also by Department and Service.”

When metrics are transparent and discussed across clinical and operational leaders, they become not just a dashboard—but a community-building tool.

Innovations Born from Community

Peer learning is a core value in high-functioning access teams. The PAC’s Access Innovations Session gave leaders a chance to showcase what’s working—from clinic decision tree algorithms to new models of ambulatory scheduling. These moments reinforce the idea that access innovation doesn’t come from one department—it comes from the collective.

By lifting up these examples, leaders not only highlight success—they also invite replication, iteration, and adaptation across their systems.

What’s Next: Access Leaders… Assemble!

If access is the answer, then the next step is clear: access leaders must assemble. Community is not a luxury—it’s a lever for transformation. Our closing call at the Medical Director Roundtable said it best:

“Now is our time to shine.”

As the operational, clinical, and financial stakes in access grow higher, those who build resilient internal communities will be best positioned to deliver—not just on metrics, but on mission.

Whether you’re launching an access council, revising templates, or implementing new technology, remember that the most powerful change doesn’t happen in isolation.

It happens in community.