Inter-facility transfer requests
How do we take an inter-facility transfer request with the clinical summary and bed needs captured, route it to the accepting physician and bed management, and record the decision on the EMTALA clock?
Run the transfer as one request with two decisions. When a sending facility asks to transfer a patient, Callvu prefills what the sending facility supplies through a link or the transfer line (the patient, the condition and stability, the reason for transfer, the sending physician, the level of care and bed needed, the services required, the coverage), classifies the request (an emergency transfer the receiving hospital's EMTALA obligation covers, a higher level of care, a repatriation, a specialty service, an elective transfer), routes it in parallel to the accepting physician for the clinical decision and to bed management for the bed decision in the Decision Desk, records each decision with who made it and the time, and writes the accepted transfer with the bed, the accepting physician and the expected arrival to the EHR and the transfer center log, or the declined request with the reason the regulation requires.
In scopeComplex: multi-party handoffsCallvu moves: prefill, classify, decide, write back
Last updated November 7, 2026.
The problem today
The transfer center took the call, paged the physician, called bed management, and the sending emergency department waited forty minutes for an answer the regulation says must not be unreasonably refused.
Transfer requests arrive by phone to a transfer center or a nursing supervisor: a patient in a small emergency department who needs a cardiac catheterization lab, a stroke unit, a trauma team, a bed the sending hospital does not have. The request is written on a form, the physician is paged, bed management is called, and the sending physician holds. The decision, when it comes, is recorded by hand, and the regulation's question (did the receiving hospital with capacity accept?) is answered from memory.
EMTALA requires a hospital with specialized capabilities and capacity to accept an appropriate transfer of an individual with an emergency medical condition, and requires the sending hospital to send the records, the certification and the consent; the receiving hospital must log the request and the response and must report an inappropriate transfer. The transfer center's job is a clinical decision and a bed decision, made quickly, with a record. Both can be routed at once.
A transfer decided in minutes, with the record the regulation needs, is what the sending patient is waiting for.
How it runs
From the requestto the system of record.
A sending facility requests a transfer through the transfer line, a link or an e-referral. Callvu opens the request and prefills it.
- Sending facility and physician
- Provide the clinical summary, the stability, the reason, the bed need and the records through the link or the line.
- Accepting physician
- Decides the clinical acceptance in the Decision Desk.
- Bed management
- Decides the bed and the unit in the Decision Desk.
- Transfer center
- Coordinates, records and arranges the transport.
- Callvu
- Prefills, classifies, routes in parallel, records and writes.
Prefill the request
The sending facility's data is captured once (the patient's identity and demographics, the chief complaint and the working diagnosis, the vital signs and the stability, the interventions so far, the reason for transfer and the service needed, the level of care and the bed type, the isolation and equipment needs, the sending physician and the call-back number, the coverage) through the link or by the transfer center from the line, and the receiving hospital's capabilities and current capacity are prefilled.
Classify
The request is classified: an emergency medical condition requiring the receiving hospital's specialized capability (the EMTALA acceptance obligation applies where capacity exists), a higher level of care, a repatriation to the patient's home hospital, a specialty consult transfer, or an elective transfer; the classification sets the clock, the decision-makers and the record required.
Decide in parallel
The request goes at once to the accepting physician for the clinical decision (accept, accept with conditions, decline with the clinical reason, request more information) and to bed management for the bed decision (the unit, the bed, the time available, or no capacity with the reason), in the Decision Desk with only the allowed outcomes; a decline on an emergency transfer requires the reason the regulation recognizes (no capacity or no capability) recorded by the person who decided.
Record and write back
The accepted transfer with the accepting physician, the bed, the expected arrival and the transport arrangement, or the declined request with the reason, is written to the EHR (a pre-admission for an accepted patient) and the transfer center log with every time stamp, the sending facility is told and asked to send the records, the certification and the consent, and a declined emergency transfer or a suspected inappropriate transfer is flagged to the compliance office.
Where it ends: The transfer was decided by the physician and bed management at the same time, inside minutes, with the reason recorded where it was declined, and the EHR and the transfer log hold the record the regulation requires. The Decision Trace shows the classification and each decision with who made it; the Audit Trace shows the request, the routing and the responses with time.
Runtime enforcement
What is enforcedwhile the work runs.
The regulations preloaded in Callvu Studio and the bank's own policies, applied as steps that run, not lines in a binder. A step that breaks a rule does not run, so a completed run was compliant.
The handoff
Between the front doorand the back office.
The front door
The transfer line, a sending facility's link or an e-referral; the sending physician sees the status instead of holding.
The back office
The physician and bed management decide on one request; the transfer center coordinates from the record.
The Decision Desk
- Every transfer request goes to the accepting physician and to bed management in the Decision Desk at once, with the request and only accept, accept with conditions, decline with the recognized reason, or request more information.
Proof
In scope.Proof at scale, not one process at a time.
The kind of process Callvu runs in production for customers in this industry. Ask for a reference on this exact process. The results below are the industry's published proof; each claim code links to its record on agents.callvu.com.
23 hospitals in the Ministry of Health network run on Callvu.
Across Callvu customers
More than 1,000 processes are live across Callvu customers.
Across Callvu customers
Questions
What buyers ask next,answered plainly.
Who decides a transfer?
The accepting physician for the clinical acceptance and bed management for the bed, at the same time, in the Decision Desk, with the decisions recorded with who made them and when.
Can the hospital decline an emergency transfer?
Only for a reason the regulation recognizes, no capacity or no capability, recorded by the person who decided; a decline on an emergency transfer is flagged to compliance.
What does the sending facility have to send?
The records, the physician's certification that the benefits outweigh the risks and the patient's consent, requested on acceptance and attached to the record on arrival.
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