Low-cost strategies help improve flow.
Improving patient flow is a challenging task, but it doesn't always have to be costly, as the ED at the University of Kansas Hospital has shown. It has reduced its rate of patients left without being treated from 12% to 4% and virtually eliminated ambulance diversions. Several of its strategies involved nominal costs. * Standing orders were created for the 10 most common patient complaints. * The centralized rack for patient charts was replaced with smaller racks hung on the wall near the nurses' workstations, to give them easier access. * When an order is written, the doctor positions the flag outside each exam room so the nurse can see the patient is ready to be moved.
D017598:Efficiency, Organizational / Q000191:economics*; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006785:Hospitals, University; D007615:Kansas; D010360:Patient Transfer