Conduit Health Partners is a company that improves care and access for patients, partnering with your health system in patient navigation. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Conduit Health Partners President Cheryl Dalton-Norman, MBA, BSN, RN to learn more about the company.
Cheryl Dalton-Norman’s Background
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What is Cheryl Dalton-Norman’s background? Dalton-Norman said:
“I’m driven to help people get the care they need by removing barriers in communication and access—and in doing so, I’m helping people get the care they need in a complex and often confusing health care ecosystem.
“After receiving my Bachelor of Science in nursing from the University of Tennessee College of Nursing, I held a variety of nurse leadership roles in both non-profit and for-profit organizations. When I was promoted to system vice president of access for Mercy Health—now Bon Secours Mercy Health—in 2016, I was asked by our president and CEO to explore how to employ some of the principles I’d learned from for-profit health care to drive patient access improvement. I focused initially on patient transfers for Mercy Health in Ohio and Kentucky. Patient transfer can be a struggle to manage—and it significantly hurts patient care and hospital revenue when it isn’t managed correctly.
“We built a centralized transfer center where our nurses worked with physicians and other caregivers to find the right setting for care based on the patient’s needs and the availability of beds and services. We also dug into the data from patient transfers to better understand where patients were coming from, what brought them to our system and why people were leaving for care elsewhere. Our efforts to centralize the patient transfer process ultimately proved very successful in ensuring patients were receiving the most appropriate level of care in as timely a manner as possible.
“Once we’d successfully tackled patient transfers, we added nurse-first triage to our mix of services. This helped us identify where and when patients needed to be seen or whether they could care for themselves at home. It’s an approach that ultimately drove down unnecessary emergency department (ED) visits for patients, including among our own employees, many of whom had begun to rely on the ED for non-emergency care.”
Formation Of Conduit Health
How did the idea for Conduit Health come together? Dalton-Norman shared:
“We believed the successes we’d experienced in patient transfer and nurse-first triage could be applied at other health systems to improve quality of care and ensure that patients were seeking the right care in the right settings. That’s ultimately why we launched Conduit Health Partners in 2017. Our models for care result in high levels of patient satisfaction and better outcomes. They’re also popular with the employees of the health systems we serve, who appreciate knowing that an experienced clinician has their back when resources are stretched thin and volumes are high.
“Today, we have more than 230 team members, including 125 registered nurses. All of our employees work remotely. In the past six years, our registered nurses have responded to more than 10 million calls across 48 states and more than 500 facilities in the health system, health plan, federally qualified health center and employer sectors.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Dalton-Norman reflected:
“I’m reminded of a thank you note that was sent to one of our nurses by a woman whose husband was dying of cancer. She’d run out of morphine one weekend to help manage his pain and was having trouble reaching anyone who could provide assistance. She called our nurse triage line for help. Now, ordinarily, this would not be a scenario we would encounter, but our nurse was determined to move mountains for this woman and her husband to get the relief he needed.
“This was a difficult task given the rules around prescriptions for narcotics, but our nurse knew this woman needed someone to help her navigate the system and advocate for what she needed. Ultimately, that’s what she did. Because of that nurse’s dedication, this woman was able to secure the medication her husband desperately needed, saving him from undue suffering. It’s a powerful example of the impact we can make as nurses when we champion our patients’ needs.”
Core Solutions
What are the company’s core solutions and services? Dalton-Norman explained:
“We provide nurse-first triage services that help patients make informed health care decisions—namely, whether to seek care for a health concern, when, and in what setting. It’s an offering that helps patients avoid unnecessary trips to the ED for care. It also eases the minds of patients and family members, such as when a caregiver faces a health concern for an elderly relative late at night and has trouble determining whether to call an ambulance or wait until morning to contact the relative’s primary care physician. Nurse-first triage closes gaps in knowledge and helps patients make the right decisions regarding their care. The “nurse first” distinction is an important one. It means patients don’t have to talk to an administrative assistant first, explain their health issue, and then wait to be transferred to or receive a call back from a nurse for a consultation. This speeds access to health advice and lets patients know from the start: ‘You’re in good hands.’
“The benefits extend beyond peace of mind. Nurse-first triage lowers health care costs by reducing unnecessary ED visits, preventing readmissions, and expanding access to care advice for underserved communities. It’s also a powerful tool for supporting physician and staff recruitment and retention.
“Conduit Health Partners also offers patient transfer services that give hospitals and health systems a single access point for managing patient flow across networks of care. Our transfer center operates around the clock to ensure that patients are swiftly transferred to the appropriate medical facility. It’s a process that starts with a single phone call. From there, our team initiates a seamless transfer process, minimizing any delays in critical care.
“For nurses, clinicians and staff, our transfer services allow them to trust another professional to coordinate patient transfers so they can focus on what they do best: caring for patients at the bedside. Our team manages the full patient transfer process. We start by identifying a location based on provider preference, the patient’s needs, inpatient capacity and the transportation services available. We arrange both inbound and outbound transfers for medical and behavioral health, facilitate physician-to-physician consultations, coordinate handoffs, arrange for direct admissions, where needed, and more. We also work with emergency medical services teams to coordinate handoffs and transfers.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Dalton-Norman and the team faced in building the company? Dalton-Norman acknowledged:
“As a business, one of the challenges we face is that while some health care work is easy to quantify, some is mission driven. It has value for communities but might be difficult to define in dollars and cents. It’s one thing to do the math on a value proposition for health care revenue cycle. For example: ‘Here’s how much we collect on average. Here’s our rate of point-of-service collections year over year.’
“But how do you measure the value of building trust and connection with patients? How do you capture improved access to care for underserved or rural populations from a telephone call after hours? These are new ways of looking at value—and we’re constantly having conversations with our health system clients about this. This type of value is just as important as the number of avoided ED visits.”
Using Technology Solutions
Since your nurse triage service is telephone based, how does that keep pace with today’s tech-driven world? What other ways does Conduit use technology to provide solutions to its clients? Dalton-Norman noted:
“We want to make sure we’re accessible. While a telephone might not be a high-tech gadget, the simplicity of it makes our services accessible to almost everyone, which is a big selling point. Our goal is to use technologies that support human-to-human interactions.
“It’s also important to note that our nurse-first triage service is not solely telephone-based. For example, we have a partner that serves homeless populations, offering access to our nurses via a video kiosk or laptop.
“We have a technology partner, and together we help community shelters in Madison, Wis., where people can access a nurse using a one-touch video kiosk. This partnership also provides access to care for underserved populations supported by Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army. But primarily, people access our services by telephone. If you look at social determinants of health, you’ll find that 97% of American adults own a cellphone of some kind. It makes sense, then, that we would provide services via the device Americans use most—their cellphone.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Dalton-Norman cited:
“When we passed a million patients served in 2021, that was a significant milestone for Conduit. The milestones we’re achieving occur as we evolve to meet various clients’ needs. For instance, when we founded Conduit in 2017, we could not have imagined that our clients would include federally qualified health centers (FQHCs). We’re thrilled to be doing this work, which enables us to reach marginalized populations. Similarly, we did not anticipate we’d be working with people in community shelters or that we would be helping employers care for their employees or partnering with health plans. As we’ve grown, we’ve developed new services to offer to these organizations, and we’re excited by the ways we’re evolving.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Dalton-Norman about customer success stories, she highlighted:
“There was a rare, significant snowstorm that occurred in Texas this past January, and it forced one large health system client of ours to cancel in-person appointments. We helped to fill in the gaps for this health system and make sure their patients were cared for that day. We contacted patients to notify them of the cancellations, we rescheduled appointments, answered any health questions they might have had, and offered care advice, where appropriate. Our nurses fielded more than 3,000 phone calls in one day.
“We pride ourselves on being flexible and responsive. We’re really proud that when we had the opportunity to lend a hand to one of our partners during a catastrophic event or an unexpected weather event, we stepped in and did what we needed to do in the moment to connect with patients.”
Funding/Revenue
When asking Dalton-Norman about the company’s funding/revenue details, she revealed:
“Our pipeline has about $230 million in potential revenue that we are actively pursuing. We don’t have investors; we are a subsidiary of our parent company, Bon Secours Mercy Health.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Dalton-Norman assessed:
“It is in the billions. Because we work with health systems as well as payers and employers, we have an incredibly large total addressable market.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Dalton-Norman affirmed:
“I believe what separates Conduit from the competition is our commitment to facilitate immediate access to a registered nurse. Our focus on rapid access to the person who can help a patient in the moment is a key differentiator. Additionally, our analytics provide detailed insights that help clients make good choices regarding what services are needed and where to invest. Finally, our deep expertise in health care enables us to have a consultative and collaborative relationship with providers, health plans and employers and provide meaningful data that helps in making good strategic plans.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Dalton-Norman pointed out:
“When Conduit launched six years ago, we were founded to support our parent company, Bon Secours Mercy Health, which has 48 hospitals and care locations across seven states. Our goal now, as we’ve expanded to take on a variety of different types of clients, is to double our external revenue within a year to 18 months.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics to discuss? Dalton-Norman concluded:
“While AI and advancements in technology are top of mind in health care right now, we’re committed to helping people speak to a live human being to help them get the care and care advice they need. Nurse-first triage and patient transfer services might not be as trendy as generative AI, but in the ecosystem of care, there’s a place for technological advancement, and there’s a place for human-to-human interaction. We take pride in caring for people the way they want to be cared for. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most.”
