What can hospitals do to best manage the growing number of uninsured patients presenting to the emergency department?
JP: Emergency departments must improve their processes so that they are able to treat patients more efficiently. Their goal needs to be to have a zero percent turn-away policy which will improve both their profitability and their reputation. By becoming more efficient, these departments will be able to treat more people with the same amount of time and resources. This includes improvement of check-in processes, triage definitions, flow of patients, treatment activities and more. An ER can easily increase capacity by 10-30 percent with process improvements. Q: What are some strategies that the organizations you work with use to improve their emergency department efficiency? JP: There are two primary areas where emergency departments can see improvements through process efficiency. The first is the way they admit patients and the second is the flow of patients through the ER activities. Emergency departments must better triage patients. They need to be seen at the front desk very quickly
JP: Emergency departments must improve their processes so that they are able to treat patients more efficiently. Their goal needs to be to have a zero percent turn-away policy which will improve both their profitability and their reputation. By becoming more efficient, these departments will be able to treat more people with the same amount of time and resources. This includes improvement of check-in processes, triage definitions, flow of patients, treatment activities and more. An ER can easily increase capacity by 10-30 percent with process improvements. Q: What are some strategies that the organizations you work with use to improve their emergency department efficiency? JP: There are two primary areas where emergency departments can see improvements through process efficiency. The first is the way they admit patients and the second is the flow of patients through the ER activities. Emergency departments must better triage patients. They need to be seen at the front desk very quickly
