A discharge lounge boom is on the horizon, yet many systems are struggling to find the best practices for implementation.
Discharge lounges are specialized spaces that give patients a quiet place to relax during the discharge process while hospitals turn around beds more quickly. The first lounges were piloted around 2020 and have gained popularity over the last few years.
Amid a growing focus on improving throughput and reducing ED wait times, many leaders across the nation are now looking to lounges as a way to cut waits without impacting patient experience.
“In a capital-constrained environment, where leaders must prioritize investments that drive growth, a discharge lounge represents a high-impact, low-capital strategy to improve throughput and patient access,” Elodia Mercier, BSN, RN-c, senior clinical director of nursing operations at New York City-based Montefiore Health System, told Becker’s.
However, setting up discharge lounges come with their own challenges.
Becker’s reached out to two systems with successful discharge lounges to learn their best practices.
Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital in Palos Heights, Ill.
Northwestern’s Palos Hospital opened its discharge lounge in December 2022. Within a year of opening, the lounge cut average wait times down to one hour, cut patients left without being seen by 49% and improved both inpatient and ED patient experience scores.
The discharge lounge operates five days a week with a goal of serving 15 patients per day. Its model is different from most — instead of sending patients to the lounge who have already completed their post-treatment briefing and are waiting for a ride, the hospital sends patients to the lounge before discharge is complete. A dedicated nurse and patient care technician finish the discharge briefing, administer medication and wrap up any remaining care at the lounge, Rebecca Baute, BSN, RN, chief nurse executive of the hospital, told Becker’s.
It’s one of a few best practices the hospital has implemented. Others include:
- Setting up the discharge lounge close to the exit so ambulances and family members can pull right up to the doors. This improves movement and throughput.
- Designing the space to accommodate patients leaving on stretchers.
- Hiring dedicated staff that work in the discharge lounges and ensure nurses have experience. “They’re highly attuned to what’s happening in the organization,” Ms. Baute said. “They know where to look in the EMR first thing in the morning, and they proactively round on units and speak with charge nurses.”
- Partnering with the physical therapy department to train discharge lounge staff on vehicle assists to prevent injuries.
- Creating clear criteria for which patients are appropriate for the discharge lounge and educating staff.
- Preparing patients early by educating them on what the discharge lounge is and what to expect from it. “Without that preparation, some patients refuse to go because they think we’re trying to move them out quickly due to emergency department volume,” she said. “Education from Day 1 helps prevent that misunderstanding.”
Above all, Ms. Baute said, keep the discharge lounge flexible.
“The possibilities for a discharge lounge are almost endless,” she said. “A discharge lounge can significantly improve throughput and efficiency across the organization if you’re willing to think creatively about how to use it. We recently began supporting some outpatient departments. For example, our cath lab sometimes runs out of space, so we can recover cath lab patients in the discharge lounge when capacity allows.”
If she was building the program again from scratch, Ms. Baute said she would focus earlier on patient and staff buy-in.
“When we first opened, we had patients refusing to go to the discharge lounge,” she said. “We also needed to ensure staff clearly understood the criteria and supported the process. Staff need to understand how the discharge lounge supports overall flow. Preparing patients and staff from the beginning makes the process much smoother. I would also ensure stakeholders understand the [key performance indicators] from Day 1 — especially partners like ambulance vendors — so they can help facilitate early transfers, particularly on days when the emergency department is holding patients.”
Montefiore Health System
Montefiore’s discharge lounge opened in 2021. Since opening, it has saved approximately 24,000 bed hours and supported more than 40,000 patients while maintaining a consistent 98% discharge call ratio. The system has also seen a 17.2% increase in volume from 2024 to 2025.
One of their best practices is also being flexible.
“Even if you establish criteria, you can’t be so rigid that you break during a flu surge or emergency,” Ms. Mercier said. “We can flex up or down and review exceptions, case by case. If someone needs a neuro bed and a patient doesn’t technically meet our criteria, I’ll review it. If we can make it work, we will. That flexibility helps decompress both the ED and inpatient units.”
Other best practices include:
- Bringing energy and enthusiasm to the discharge lounge.
- Having leadership sit with patients and discharge lounge coordinators to get a better sense of their experience.
- Opening on Saturdays, which was a difficult discharge day for the hospital.
- Staffing with part-time members, and ensuring they have strong communication skills and genuinely enjoy engaging with patients. “Anyone can do a job, but not everyone builds meaningful connections,” Ms. Mercier said. “That connection drives patient experience. To this day, some patients call us back just to say hello. Some even return to use the lounge during follow-up visits, even if they’re not being discharged. We don’t turn them away.”
- Never letting the volume plateau. “When we see volume plateauing, we strategize,” Soham Gurrala, director of staff utilization and analytics, told Becker’s. “If units are sending only 50% of eligible patients, how do we increase that to 55% or 56%? We work with them, especially if they have capacity. That proactive planning keeps operations dynamic and aligned with strategy.”
- Having the lounge team round on inpatient units to build relationships, answer questions and promote the lounge. “This is especially important in a large teaching hospital, where there’s constant turnover among residents and staff,” Ms. Mercier said. “New team members may not know about the lounge.”
- Creating a safe environment in the lounge where patients who aren’t comfortable raising concerns on the unit can discuss their needs.
If they were starting over, Ms. Mercier and Mr. Gurrala said they would focus on directly correlating [Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey] scores with lounge use.
“From a data perspective, tracking HCAHPS impact in real time would add tremendous value,” Mr. Gurrala said. “Bed hours saved and cost savings are important, but patient experience is the real impact. Patients should leave with a positive memory.”
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