Increasing Throughput

 

 

Improving the flow of patients through the emergency department (ED) is an important goal for hospitals looking to reduce ED crowding and provide better care to the growing number of patients who seek treatment in the ED. 

  • As a result of hospitals’ efforts through this initiative, 10,000 patients avoided leaving EDs before care was provided.
  • Fifty-five percent of participating teams reduced the time patients spent in their EDs by an average of 30 minutes.
  • Forty teams representing 14 AF4Q Alliances participated in the Improving Throughput collaborative.
    • Thirty-seven hospitals in Increasing Throughput collected and reported data on ED throughput
    • Twenty two hospitals reduced the time patients spend in the ED. Good Samaritan in Puget Sound achieved the largest improvement with an average decrease of 101 minutes for patients being admitted and Regional Medical Center in Memphis achieved the largest improvement by reducing their average time for discharged patients by 89 minutes.
    • Sixteen hospitals reduced their boarding time. Mercy Hospital in Portland Maine achieved the largest improvement by reducing the amount of time admitted patients waited to be transferred to an inpatient unit by 43 percent.
    • Twenty hospitals reduced their Left Before Being Seen (LBBS) rates. Lovelace Women’s Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico achieved the largest improvement reducing their LBBS rate by 19.5 percent.
  • By the end of the collaborative, 95 percent of the hospital teams in Improving Throughput had successfully standardized their registration systems to collect self-reported race, ethnicity and language data.