Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Advancing Quality, Patient Flow, and Value Based Care at WellSpan Ephrata with Ericka Powell
Mar 7, 2026
Ericka Powell, VP of Medical Affairs and emergency physician, leads quality and flow improvements at WellSpan Ephrata. She discusses reducing length-of-stay variation and standardized multidisciplinary rounds. She covers data-driven care pathways and dashboards to tackle consult delays. She highlights workforce stability, value-based performance, and balancing urgent operations with transformational change.
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Cutting Length Of Stay Variation Improves Capacity
- Reducing length of stay variation aligns clinical quality with operations to improve throughput and capacity.
- WellSpan focused on interdisciplinary rounds, escalation pathways, and documentation accuracy across hospitals to cut avoidable LOS variation.
Playbook Standardized Multidisciplinary Rounds
- Creating a health system playbook standardized multidisciplinary rounds across eight hospitals to find common throughput barriers.
- Example: they streamlined consult ordering, implemented a consultant engagement dashboard, and added an escalation pathway to speed throughput.
Stabilize Workforce By Optimizing Workflows
- Prioritize workforce stabilization and use technology to optimize staffing while addressing burnout.
- Focus investments on tools that make clinicians' work efficient and support retention as part of clinical workforce strategy.