Robin Wood, senior clinical director at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) Capacity Management Center and the Penn Medicine Transfer Center in the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), has been selected for the 2024 Carol Emmott Fellowship class by the Carol Emmott Foundation, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to achieving gender equity in healthcare leadership and governance.

The foundation selects fellows for a 14-month program and supports them in designing and completing an impact project in their health communities. Fellows are also paired with mentors who are nationally recognized senior executives. Dr. Wood is among 24 fellows in the 2024 class, their largest class to date, with a range of disciplines within healthcare, including clinical care, financial analysis, data science, operations, and strategy.

For her fellowship project, Dr. Wood will explore the recent implementation of a practice at HUP through patients with similar medical conditions are treated in the same unit, under the same group of providers, called “geographic population cohorting.” There is limited research on this strategy, but existing research suggests benefits for both patients and providers.

While some patients at HUP, like those receiving care for cardiac or cancer diagnoses, are already treated with this method, patients admitted under the umbrella of Advanced Medicine: the hospitalist medicine service and subspecialty medical services (infectious disease, gastroenterology, or pulmonary) were scattered throughout HUP main. Dr. Wood’s team, in collaboration with numerous stakeholders, implemented geographic cohorting in the spring of 2023. Early post-implementation data has suggested a decrease in inpatient length of stay, decreased Emergency Department boarding, and a positive impact on team cohesion. With an eye for improving hospital operations, Dr. Wood will evaluate whether this strategy improves patient outcomes and experience, decreases length of stay, and enhances provider and nurse communication and teamwork. She will further explore methods to translate her research into practice and the potential for replication throughout the system.

Her work in the Capacity Management Center has been focused on improvements in patient access, capacity management efficiency, and the prioritization of acute specialized populations in Philadelphia. These efforts have translated into decreases in length of stay and emergency department boarding, among other metrics.