title: Innovative approach to the aims for improvement: emergency department patient throughput in an impacted urban setting.
abstract: Los Angeles County is in crisis with its emergency ambulatory care. Many barriers exist at the hospital level that affect patient throughput. A case study is presented for St. Francis Medical Center, a 384-bed hospital in southeast Los Angeles. Its governing board has put out a call to have its emergency department oversee intraprocess and interprocess improvements to enhance patient movement through the system. These innovative front- and back-end initiatives are examined using the Institute of Medicine's Six Aims for Improvement. Details on each of the initiatives are provided along with how the leadership monitors the progress.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences, California State University, Northridge, CA 91330, USA. Lrubino@earthlink.net
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rubino
authors.forename: Larry
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Stahl
authors.forename: Marsha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D016519:Hospitals, Religious; D006786:Hospitals, Urban; D006801:Humans; D015141:Los Angeles; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D010360:Patient Transfer / Q000458:organization & administration*