Teams pull emergency services out of the doldrums
In 1996, Overlook Hospital Emergency Department in Summit, NJ, launched an interdisciplinary revival of its lackluster patient satisfaction ratings. Here are the highlights of that two-year effort:
o Fast-Track Team
Reduced arrival-to-discharge cycle for non-urgent problems from 120 to less than 60 minutes.
o Arrival-to-Physician-Contact Team
Considered a key factor in patient satisfaction, this cycle dropped from 31 minutes to 18.
o Bedside Registration Team
Emergency department (ED) registrars complete check in after taking patients to a bed. Patients are thrilled with the high-level of privacy and reduced time in the waiting room.
o Admission Process Task Force
Inpatient units call the ED for incoming patient’s report and negotiate a transfer time. Decision-to-admit to transfer-to-unit cycles dropped from 180 minutes to less than 60 minutes.
o Pain Management Task Force (in progress)
Pain is one of the primary reasons patients visit the ED, as well as one of the greatest points of dissatisfaction.
• Focus: Early pain identification and management.
• Data collected:
1. Use of pain scale. Perception: Physicians said they used it 36% of the time, nurses 51%. Reality: 0% documented use of pain scale.
2. Administration of pain medication. Perception: Physicians said 74% of the time, nurses 80%. Reality: 36% of ankle fracture patients received it.
3. Average time to pain medication, 78 minutes, identical to sprain time to medication.
• Planned interventions: Staff training, chart monitoring, and real-time feedback to increase compliance with completion of pain scale on initial assessment, design of pain management algorithm.
(For more on Overlook ED’s improvements in patient satisfaction, see cover story.)
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content