Monday, April 2, 2012

What are the important things to measure for ED flow improvement?



There are many metrics in the ED, ranging from patient satisfaction to % of Medicaid patients.   To improve patient flow and identify bottlenecks, there are 10 steps and times that should be measured:

1. Door to Triage
2. Triage to MD (assuming MD is in triage)
3. Bed to RN
4. Bed to MD
5. MD to Decision (DC vs. ADMIT)
   6) Imaging order to read
   7) Lab order to results
   8) Recheck of patient
9) DC to actually being out of ED
10) ADMIT to floor

If you add the total time of each of these steps, this equals total Length of Stay in ED (LOS).

Based upon the review of the time needed for each of step, an ED director can determine which areas need more effort and time to reduce the time in ED.  This is crucial because patient satisfaction is linked to the overall time in ED. 

1 comment:

Code3Spots said...

This goes to show how important it is to have an experienced triage nurse and docs that can dispo patients quickly.