Pennsylvania-based St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) has partnered with startup Auxira Health to strengthen the capacity of its cardiology services. In an e-mail Q&A, Joanne Fulmer, director of operations at SLUHN, explained the value of the partnership to St. Luke’s. 

Healthcare Innovation: What are some of the care coordination issues that St. Luke’s cardiology faces that Auxira’s team can help with?

Fulmer: With the aging population, demand for cardiology services is surging. Our cardiologists' schedules are increasingly packed with routine, lower-acuity follow-ups and medication management. The sheer volume of patient portal messages, refill requests, and routine inquiries creates a massive amount of work for our clinical teams. Auxira addresses this by embedding a dedicated virtual APP directly into our care teams. They assist with lower-acuity telehealth visits and inbox management, ensuring patients get timely care while freeing up our cardiologists to see the complex patients who need their attention.

HCI: Can access to specialists be a bottleneck and could this speed up patient access?

Fulmer: When a cardiologist's schedule is filled with routine follow-ups, it artificially restricts access for new patients or those with acute, complex cardiovascular needs. By routing lower-acuity virtual visits to Auxira’s APPs, we unlock significant capacity on our cardiologists' physical schedules. This dramatically reduces the "third next available appointment" metric (a standard measure for patient access), meaning high-acuity patients can get into the clinic much faster.

HCI: Were there things that you saw at MedStar or other deployments of Auxira that impressed you the most?

Fulmer: Their rapid operationalization and seamless integration into current workflows were particularly notable. We were impressed with their impact on patient engagement and follow-through, closing gaps in care, improving adherence, and reduction in unnecessary utilization.

HCI: Are you piloting this with a smaller cohort before scaling it up?

Fulmer: We started in six pods. A pod involves matching a dedicated Auxira APP with three of our cardiologists. The impact of the program was clear after only a few months of launching, so we expanded and deployed another two pods. As we continue to see the benefits of the program, we plan to expand the program.

HCI: How does this leverage existing SLUHN systems and operational workflows? Are there any challenges with rolling out this new care model? Any issues with communication about patients or data sharing?

Fulmer: We’re intentionally leveraging our existing SLUHN infrastructure particularly within the EHR to ensure seamless communication and data visibility. As with any new model, there are change management considerations, aligning workflows, and ensuring clarity in roles and maintaining consistent communication. Overall, we see this as an enhancement to our current systems rather than a disruption.

HCI: What are some throughput or clinical outcome impacts you are already seeing or are hoping to see? Reducing after-hours EHR time?  

Fulmer: New patient wait times are decreasing since Auxira APP’s are seeing follow-ups that free up the physician’s schedule. We leverage the Auxira APPs to see heart failure follow-up appointments, decreasing our readmission rate. Physicians have a significant decrease in their inbox, which has improved morale and work/home life balance. We have already found a 79% improvement in message response time to patients e-mails and are starting to experience an increase in new patients visits.

HCI: Anything else you want to stress about the partnership?

Fulmer: What’s most exciting is that this is truly a partnership. We're combining clinical expertise with innovative care models to enhance the patient quality and experience. This is about building a more proactive, coordinated, and sustainable model of cardiovascular care for the future.