Connect

Every year, hundreds of new providers join the ranks of UVA Health, both in our academic medicine division and in our community health organization. Before they can care for patients, these providers must complete an on-boarding process during which their credentials — education, training and experience — are verified and they are approved to access patient records and other protected information needed to do their job. 

As UVA Community Health integrates into the broader UVA Health enterprise, managing the on-boarding of all new providers through one unified process is an important priority. As part of the integration effort, provider credentialing for all locations will be managed at the system level. To learn more about coming changes, we recently spoke with Tracey Hoke, MD, Chief of Quality and Performance Improvement for UVA Health. Dr. Hoke supports the Clinical Staff Office and the transition to a Credentials Verification Organization (CVO) for the Integration Initiative.

Why is change needed?

Hoke: We have a deadline for disconnecting UVA Community Health from systems provided by its former owner, Novant Health. One of those Novant systems is a Credentialing Verification Organization (CVO) called EchoCredentialing that supports provider on-boarding.

What will change look like?

Hoke: We are expanding the existing processes and platforms of UVA Medical Center’s CVO to provide system level support to all of UVA Health. The Medical Center CVO uses the Symplr Cactus platform.

Will providers credentialed through the Symplr platform automatically receive privileges at all UVA Health hospitals and facilities?

Hoke: No, medical staff membership will continue to be managed at the local facility. As required by regulatory agencies, medical staff membership/privileges will be approved by local Credentials Committees/Medical Executive Committees. 

Some providers are asking if the shared credentialing process will be used to confer faculty appointments. Is that true? 

Hoke: No. UVA academic faculty appointments are managed by the UVA School of Medicine Dean’s Office.

How will our providers benefit from this change?

Hoke: Bringing the UVA Community Health CVO in-house allows us to concurrently perform credentialing and provisioning. For incoming providers, this will mean having a single point of contact, a more seamless on-boarding experience and quicker clearance to provide patient care. 

How will this change benefit UVA Health as a whole?

Hoke: There are several key benefits to mention here:

• Recruiting providers is ultra-competitive. Being able to offer a quick, user friendly on-boarding process will be an asset for us in attracting new providers.
• Having a CVO for UVA Community Health that resembles and compliments our academic medical division’s CVO will allow us to seamlessly share data across departments, internal organizations and external groups such as the Federation of State Medical Boards, the American Board of Medical Specialties and the Joint Commission. 
• Using a common system and processes will allow us to leverage UVA Health’s best practices throughout our system — creating a much more cohesive onboarding experience across all our facilities.

When will the UVA Community Health CVO launch?

Hoke: We have completed the design phase of this project and are now focusing on configuring our applications and determining operational workflows. Team member training will also be occurring throughout the next few months as we prepare for go-live of the new UVA Community Health CVO at the beginning of November.

What do you find most exciting about this change?

Hoke: From the perspective of Quality and Performance Improvement, I’m a champion of aligning and centralizing resources and creating processes that are predictable and repeatable. Looking at the bigger picture, it makes me proud to see the high-quality care that UVA Health provides being extended across the Commonwealth and made available to more patients.