How Saint Mary's Health Network Scaled Patient Growth with Steer

Challenge

As Saint Mary's expanded its urgent and emergency care centers, the cracks in its patient experience widened. Booking an appointment was difficult, with overwhelmed call centers and hold times stretching to nearly an hour (54 minutes on average). A 22% no-show rate across urgent and emergency care was driving revenue leakage, staff shortages were compounding the strain, and missed quality benchmarks like annual wellness visits were leading to poor quality scores and payer penalties. Despite a team deeply committed to care, the system was losing patients, time, and revenue.

The network needed more than another tool. It needed a scalable way to improve access, reduce no-shows, unify digital and in-person care, and grow revenue while removing operational chaos.

Implementation: A System-Wide Redesign, Delivered in Partnership

Steer did not bolt a tool onto a struggling system. Working with Saint Mary's leadership, the team took on a full redesign of how patients access care, mapping the fragmented journey across primary care, emergency services, and specialists before configuring anything. FastTrackCare was rolled out to match a multi-facility, 50-plus-provider operation, with Luna tuned to absorb the call-center volume that was driving 54-minute holds, digital intake and pre-registration built into the ER flow, and guided navigation wired to keep patients moving between departments. Because the deployment spanned service lines, Steer sequenced it around the network's own priorities and stayed close through each phase, so staff adopted the change instead of working around it.

“Our priority is to provide patients with an exceptional experience. Steer helps us do that, even before they walk through the door," said Derrick Glum, Chief Executive Officer.”

Solution

Saint Mary's deployed FastTrackCare, Steer Health's omnichannel AI front door, to redesign the patient journey from intake to follow-up.

Luna, the AI voice agent embedded in FastTrackCare, handles inbound call volume and appointment booking so staff no longer manage every call by hand. Patients can book, reschedule, or cancel anytime, online, by text, or by voice, and automated reminders reduce no-shows. Digital intake and pre-registration cut administrative burden, real-time ER updates let patients see wait times and register from home, and guided care navigation links primary care, emergency services, and specialists so patients keep moving forward. Referral capture and post-visit follow-up run automatically across care transitions, and every action reconciles back to the EHR as the system of record.

Why It Matters

For a health system serving Northern Nevada for over a century, patient access is the front line of both experience and growth. With FastTrackCare, Saint Mary's can:

• Book, reschedule, and answer patients 24/7 across channels
• Cut no-shows and recover revenue that leaked through unanswered calls
• Register ER patients from home and speed intake
• Attract higher-reimbursing patients through a favorable payer mix
• Unify access across inpatient, outpatient, and wellness services

The impact showed up fast and system-wide. In six months the no-show rate fell from 22% to 5.2%, one facility booked more than 2,894 appointments digitally, and a single site welcomed over 2,000 new patients, many with higher-value insurance coverage. Positive reviews reached 94%, most after-hours requests were handled by the system itself, and in the emergency department every 50 patients saved staff an average of eight hours through smarter intake and pre-registration. Saint Mary's gained not just automation, but a clear path to sustainable growth.