Rebuilding GI Care During a Staffing Crisis
In mid-2024, a leading academic health system found itself in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable position. A sudden staffing disruption in its gastroenterology program reduced a team of nearly 20 GI physicians down to just two. Almost overnight, wait times stretched into the range of several months. Patient frustration mounted. Referral confidence weakened. Downstream procedural volume was at risk.
For leadership, the stakes were clear. Pausing GI access while rebuilding the department was not an option. Rather than waiting for hiring cycles to catch up, the organization partnered with WovenX Health to stabilize access and protect the integrity of the service line during a period of clinical instability.
Maintaining Access Without Overburdening the System
In gastroenterology, long waits are more than an inconvenience. They drive leakage. Patients return to primary care, seek care elsewhere, or end up in urgent care or the emergency department. Once that happens, referral patterns and patient trust are difficult to recover.
The system needed a way to keep patients moving through appropriate GI pathways without adding operational strain or relying on a shrinking physician team.
Working with WovenX, the health system implemented an integrated GI access model that connected patients to GI-trained advanced practice providers, maintained care continuity within the system, and preserved referral relationships during the rebuilding phase.
Results That Preserved the Service Line
From October 2024 through September 2025, the impact was measurable:
- 1,000+ GI patients seen
- 73 percent of these patients were new to the system
During what could have been a period of contraction, the GI service line maintained patient volume, protected procedural throughput, and avoided long-term erosion of referral relationships. Just as importantly, the model created operational resilience at a time when traditional staffing-based approaches would have failed.
What began as a response to disruption became a scalable access strategy the system could build on moving forward.
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The full case study details how the academic health system structured its GI access model, navigated clinical instability, and protected long-term growth during one of its most challenging periods.
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