Impact of Improving Throughput in the Emergency Department

<p>The purpose of this project was to evaluate the patient experience in the emergency department (ED) and in the inpatient setting while correlating increased throughput and patient outcomes at a suburban Acute Care facility in Ohio. The culture in the organization has lacked accountability and ownership of the patients. The ED admitted length of stay (ALOS) was 358 minutes in the beginning of 2013. For the first time in the organization’s history, the ED ALOS is now typically less than the recommended benchmark of 300 minutes. A report of findings among ED’s surveyed showed the ALOS best practice is 244 minutes with a median length of stay of 309 minutes (Premier, 2006, slide 13). Throughout its recent history, the organization has failed to have a service-oriented approach to patient care. Quality improvement was identified and implemented through a hospital-wide Kaizen event focused on throughput of the admitted patient (Appendix A). According to King (2010), “the Japanese words Kai and Zen literally means “to change” and “for the better”, and it has come to symbolize continuous improvement” (slide 5). Teams of individuals ranging from physicians to transporters spent one week of work time focused on the process mapping of the current state and future state of ED throughput. The use of information technology (IT) in the process improvement was integral to performance improvement, patient safety, and consistent ED ALOS less than 300 minutes. The transformation of the culture has aided in the success of maintaining patient throughput</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Level thesis:degree_level

Project

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Edrington, Katherine J

Contributors dc:contributor

• Juli Maxworthy DNP, MSN, MBA, RN, CNL, CPHQ, CPPS, CHSE
• Jason H. Bell, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S.
• Steve Feagins, M.D., MBA, FACP

• Throughput
• ED
• admitted length of stay
• culture
• patient experience
• patient satisfaction
• Communication
• Emergency Medicine
• Interpersonal and Small Group Communication
• Nursing
• Organizational Communication
• Organization Development
• Performance Management
• Training and Development

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.usfca.edu/dnp/33

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.usfca.edu:dnp-1042