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Use Cases Clinical Speed

Consult Response Management

Paging a specialist confirms the page was delivered — not that anyone responded. ED physicians are left waiting and re-paging while patients sit with unaddressed clinical questions and the department backs up behind them.

The Scenario

An ED physician needs a cardiology consult for a patient presenting with chest pain. They page the on-call cardiologist and wait. Fifteen minutes pass. Did someone get it? Are they coming? Should they page again? Meanwhile the patient is waiting and three others need attention.

Paging systems confirm delivery, not response. There's no accountability for acknowledgment or follow-through.

What's Actually Breaking

  • No confirmation of receipt — paging cannot distinguish "received and acting" from "received and missed."
  • Requesters have no visibility — the ordering provider doesn't know if the specialist is aware, en route, or unavailable.
  • Response times are untracked — there's no data to drive quality improvement around consult performance.

How Pathways Handles It

From consult order to confirmed response — with accountability at every step.

Consult Order Placed
EHR order or Backline request triggers the workflow with full clinical context
On-Call Specialist Identified
Pathways finds the on-call cardiologist from the schedule and routes the request
Acknowledgment Timer
Specialist must acknowledge within the configured SLA
SLA: 15 min · configurable
Auto-Escalation
No ACK triggers escalation to the backup specialist or department chief
Live Status Visibility
Requesting physician sees real-time status: sent → acknowledged → en route
Complete + Metrics Logged
Response and completion time recorded for quality reporting
Powered by Pathways capabilities:
On-Call Schedule Routing Configurable SLA Timers Escalation Chains Real-Time Status EHR Integration

Every workflow is configurable to your protocols, team structure, and EHR environment — no custom development required.

The Outcome

What changes when coordination is built into the workflow.

Confirmed
Every Consult Acknowledged
No more "did they get it?" — ACK is required, not assumed
Faster
Average Response Time
Escalation ensures no consult sits idle past its SLA
Full
Response Time Data
Trackable metrics for quality reporting and improvement

More Workflows Like This

See how Pathways handles adjacent coordination challenges.

Medication Alert Management
Critical alerts assigned, tracked, and escalated — never lost in a message thread.
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Referral Tracking & Completion
End-to-end referral tracking from order to appointment confirmation, with patient portal touchpoints.
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Prior Authorization
Multi-party approval workflows that keep auth requests moving and patients informed.
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See Consult Response Management in Your Environment

We'll map your current consult process, identify where response times break down, and show you exactly how Pathways would handle it.

Schedule a Workflow Assessment