Health IT, Executive Support Primary to ED Sufferer Flow Management

Patient flow management through the emergency department can be a challenging activity, but few health IT help and executive support produced major outcomes for Health First of Florida.

The emergency department can often be a busy, hectic, stressful place for both sufferers and their contributors.  Neither can know in advance what will happen when they walk through the doors: who they’ll see, how long it will take, if a hospital admission is needed, or if a quick prescription and a primary care follow-up will do.

For sufferers, the anxiety of visiting the emergency department can be compounded when they are told they require to be admitted but have to wait hours for a bed on the right floor upstairs.  For staff members, the procedure of pushing an admission request through the system can be convoluted, time consuming, and full of frustrating delays.

At Health First, an integrated delivery network serving Central Florida, Director of Centralized Patient Logistics Lisa Maples and her team knew that there were few important opportunities to untangle the admissions procedure and make better the speed and simplicity of patient flow through the system.

By enhancing the agency’s reliance on data analytics and health IT tools to make better the patient flow management, Health First was capable to achieve remarkable results, involving 33,000 fewer hours of waiting time in the emergency department, a 12.9% reduction in average costs per discharge, and a 19 percent reduction in average length of stay.