Background: Hospitalists are key stakeholders in patient flow throughout the hospital and are pivotal in creating efficient patient movement. Throughput metrics are a large focus for all hospitals, and it takes collaborative effort from many disciplines to effectively shift patient flow toward efficiency. Purpose: To reduce decision to admit to bed minutes in a collaborative […]

Background: In many urban hospitals, Emergency Department (ED) crowding and patient boarding is an increasing challenge. Admitted patients often spend prolonged periods of time in the ED while waiting for an inpatient bed. These ED boarded patients can have delayed or inadequate care, increased adverse events and increased mortality. Furthermore, these ED boarded patients place […]

Background: Internal medicine and hospital medicine providers are under pressure to move patients quickly through the hospital and decrease length of stay. Providers spending most of their clinical time seeing patients, documenting or coordinating care and have minimal time to disrupt workflow to perform common bedside procedures such as paracentesis, lumbar punctures, central lines, arthrocentesis […]

Background: The timing of discharges of admitted patients has a significant impact on hospital efficiency and throughput. Earlier discharges are associated with improved boarding times, admissions arriving to inpatient units earlier in the day, and decreased length of stay. Discharges that occur later in the day creates a bottleneck effect, causing emergency room congestion, overcrowding, […]