5 Areas to Address to Improve Patient Flow

Yale-New Haven (Conn.) Hospital’s Safe Patient Flow Steering Committee was able to implement several process changes at the hospital for the 2009 fiscal year that improved patient flow, resolved adult emergency department overcrowding, post-anesthesia care unit delays and operating room flow, reduced capacity during the day and improved institution-wide patient coordination, according to an article published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.

Areas Yale-New Haven addressed to improve patient flow included:

• Real-time communication
• Inter-and intra-departmental collaboration
• Staff empowerment
• Standardization of best practices
• Institutional memory

After the restructuring, Yale-New Haven experienced an 84 percent improvement in discharges by 11:00 A.M. and a decreased length of stay from 5.23 to 5.05 days, leading to accommodation of 45 additional patients per day.

5 Areas to Address to Improve Patient Flow

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