Teamwork in Action
Teamwork in Action
The Power of Partnership in Critical Care
Intensivists like Jennifer Williams, MD, find that providing patient care in a community setting is hard work but tremendously rewarding.
There is a trifecta of bonuses when Stanford critical care physicians embed with critical care medical staff at community hospital intensive care units (ICUs). The biggest benefit is to patients, who gain access to conveniently located specialized care and innovations that may even originate in the community hospital. In addition, physicians and medical staff on each side bring different types of expertise to the unit – and these new learning experiences bring both professional and personal rewards.
Critical care faculty physicians from the Department of Medicine’s Division of Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Medicine (PACCM) have been providing critical care to ICU patients at Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley since 2017. Working as a unit with Tri-Valley physicians, nurses, and other medical staff, these physicians, also known as intensivists [see sidebar below], supplement staffing at a community hospital whose attending physician resources can be thinly stretched. PACCM physicians bring academic, research-based expertise that expands the community hospital’s ability to handle more complex cases and improves overall care.
Says Arthur Sung, MD, senior associate chief of Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Medicine, “We recognized that patients living in the East Bay and Tri-Valley regions are far from the Stanford campus, so our division integrated within Stanford Tri-Valley Hospital to improve local access to academic, evidence-based critical care medicine. Our model is based on an equal, on-the-ground partnership with community hospital-based physicians and medical staff to elevate the quality of critical care.” This mutually beneficial model was so successful that PACCM expanded it to Good Samaritan Hospital in 2023 and increased physician participation in both locations in 2025.
It’s Collab for the Win
The secret to success for this collaboration is that physicians from Stanford and Tri-Valley medical staff integrate as one unit, with each side bringing a complementary level of expertise.
“Teamwork is nonnegotiable in the ICU,” says Jennifer Williams, MD, clinical assistant professor, medicine in Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Medicine, who works in the ICU at both the Stanford campus and Tri-Valley. “Much like a team sport, we grow together by learning from both our successes and challenges and share a commitment to delivering high-quality patient care.”
Adds Meghan Ramsey, MD, associate division chief of strategy and development of PACCM, “We don’t know the community as well as our community partners do. This community expertise along with the crosstalk between physicians is key for the best patient care and outcomes in the Tri-Valley area.”
“Teamwork is nonnegotiable in the ICU. Much like a team sport, we grow together by learning from both our successes and challenges and share a commitment to delivering high-quality patient care.” – Jennifer Williams, MD
Through community partnerships, PACCM physicians help improve access to care locally.
Advancing Care for Community Patients
PACCM intensivists wear multiple hats, from working in the ICU at the Stanford campus to seeing patients in a clinical outpatient setting and, as Stanford School of Medicine faculty, training residents. In these roles, they have access to the latest technologies that can benefit community hospital patients. One recent example: PACCM’s interventional pulmonologists introduced robotic bronchoscopy, an advanced lung cancer diagnostic tool, to Tri-Valley Hospital. Identifying smaller and harder-to-find cancer nodules at an earlier stage expands treatment options for these patients.
Working in ICUs at both the Stanford campus and Tri-Valley, PACCM physicians gain insight piloting different approaches that often don’t yield a one-size-fits-all solution. “It’s not the case that everything is mastered on the Stanford campus and then translated to Tri-Valley – the reverse can work, too,” says Ramsey. “We sometimes find it easier to pilot a protocol at Tri-Valley because it might be quicker and easier in a smaller space. Recently we were able to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections – a big safety concern in the ICU – by first using a new multipronged approach at Tri-Valley.”
Given Stanford’s multidisciplinary approach to care, community hospital ICU patients also have access to the extensive specialty resources that Stanford has at its disposal. Citing one recent example, Ramsey notes, “We partnered with the Department of Emergency Medicine to bring to the table faculty trained in emergency medicine critical care for additional expertise in the ICU.”
Stanford Physicians Reap Benefits by Serving the Community
Physicians working in an ICU are treating a hospital’s sickest patients with the most complex conditions. “Caring for patients in community hospitals is hard work – patients may be on a breathing machine, have an overwhelming infection in their body, or have just had cardiothoracic surgery,” says Sung. “Providing direct patient care in a community setting not only helps our physicians develop professionally, but they also find it tremendously satisfying. Interacting with patients and their families brings them back to the basics of why they became doctors in the first place.”
The next generation of intensivists benefit, too. PACCM physicians who serve as faculty at the Stanford School of Medicine provide real-world perspectives to resident trainees, who then gain unparalleled experience working in community medicine.
See related article, “A Day in the Life of an ICU Physician: Spotlight on Jennifer Williams.”
What Is an Intensivist?
ICU physicians are called intensivists, a term that comes from intensive care and reflects the intense nature of the position. Intensivists treat patients with life-threatening illnesses, often involving multiple organ systems, which requires a holistic assessment and treatment of each patient’s overall condition. Intensivists lead and coordinate the care of ICU patients with a multidisciplinary team that includes other physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, care managers, and other health care specialists. They may come from a variety of backgrounds such as internal medicine, emergency medicine, or anesthesia, and have additionally completed a fellowship in critical care.
