Tools: Inpatient Flow

Tool / Best Practice (Alphabetical order)
Contributing Hospital / Description

Admissions and Discharge Center (Categories: Inpatient Flow)
Ingalls Memorial Hospital - Ingalls Memorial Hospital found that they were frequently diverting ambulances from their ED because they were unable to find inpatient beds for ED patients who required admission. Creating an Admission and Discharge Center helped facilitate these processes and improve patient throughput.

Bed/Patient Manager (Categories: Inpatient Flow)
Redlands Community Hospital - A patient/bed manageer at Redlands Community Hospital is dedicated to finding beds for all patients who require admission.

Bridging Orders (Categories: ED Throughput, Inpatient Flow)
St. Luke's Hospital - Hospital wanted to test whether an expedited admissions protocol would reduce ED turnaround times. An ED Nurse receives bridging orders for patients to be admitted and gives those orders to the admission nurse who finds a room for the patient, bypassing an admitting physician. The protocol decreased ED turnaround time by 20 percent.

Care Management Department Improvement (Categories: ED Throughput, Inpatient Flow)
Albert Einstein Medical Center - The hospital's leadership proposed several changes to the Care Management Department, which supported these changes as they would ultimately make their work more efficient.

Code Purple (Categories: ED Throughput, Other ED, Inpatient Flow)
North Shore Medical Center - North Shore Community Hospital actively engages staff throughout the facility to help avoid diversion when the ED becomes over-crowded.

Collaborative to Improve Patient Flow (Categories: ED Throughput, Inpatient Flow, Patient Satisfaction)
Carondelet St. Mary's Hospital - A multi-disciplinary team at Carondelet St. Mary's Hospital set out to improve patient flow not just in the ED, but throughout the hospital.

Discharge Trigger (Categories: Inpatient Flow)
University of Michigan Medical Center - University of Michigan Medical Center looked for improvements to decrease bed turnover time to allow more patients to be admitted to the hospital rather than boarding in the ED.

Elective Surgery Postponement Tool (Categories: Inpatient Flow)
Latter Day Saints Hospital - Latter Day Saints Hospital began delaying or canceling elective surgeries at times when bed capacity was strained. (supporting document (PDF))

Growing Organizational Capacity (Categories: Inpatient Flow)
Lehigh Valley Hospital - Lehigh Valley Hospital focused on bed management issues to help reduce diversion.

Hospital-Wide Flow Capacity (Categories: ED Throughput, Inpatient Flow)
Bellin Hospital - Bellin Hospital took a hospital-wide approach to improving patient flow throughout the facility. In doing so, they saw a dramatic increase in the bed turnover rate.

Moving Patients in 30 Minutes (Categories: ED Throughput, Inpatient Flow)
Mount Sinai Hospital - Staff wanted to improve the time it took for a patient to begin treatment to 30 minutes and created the '30 Minute ER Promise.' It guarantees that a patient will be placed in an exam room or begin to receive treatment, such as pain medication, x-ray, or lab tests, within 30 minutes of arrival at the hospital.

Nursing Process Council (Categories: Inpatient Flow)
Cape Canaveral Hospital - Cape Canaveral Hopsital created a group to look at the patient-flow problems throughout the hospital and identify potential solutions to these problems. The group, called the Nursing Process Council (NPC) was made up of representatives from nursing, radiology, respiratory therapy, registration, and environmental services, with other departments participating as needed with specific problems.

Patient Flow Coordinator (Categories: ED Throughput, Inpatient Flow, Patient Satisfaction)
Albert Einstein Medical Center - Long delays in the ED prompted Albert Eistein Medical Center to create a Patient Flow Coordinator.

Patient Flow Excellence & Accountability Team (Categories: ED Throughput, Other ED, Inpatient Flow)
Mary Washington Hospital - A Patient Flow Excellence & Accountability Team helped Mary Washington Hospital make process changes in order to meet requirements to maintain its status as an accredited institution.

Scheduled Discharges (Categories: Inpatient Flow)
Kaiser - Sacramento/Roseville-Morse - Kaiser Foundation Hospital-Morse began scheduling discharges for early in the day in order to free-up inpatient beds for ED and surgery patients who required admission.

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