By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    improving patient experience
    6 Ways to Improve Patient Satisfaction Within Hospitals
    December 1, 2021
    degree for healthcare job
    What Are The Health Benefits Of Having A Degree?
    March 9, 2022
    custom software development is changing healthcare
    Digital Customer Journey Mapping and its Importance for Healthcare
    July 21, 2022
    Latest News
    Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
    May 16, 2025
    Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
    May 16, 2025
    Choosing the Right Supplement Manufacturer for Your Brand
    May 1, 2025
    Engineering Temporary Hospitals for Extreme Weather
    April 24, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Can Thinking Younger Make You Live Longer?
    April 20, 2011
    Image
    Obesity’s Outlook Unchanged
    June 13, 2011
    When It’s An Emergency Elderly Not Treated As Well in Hospitals
    July 16, 2011
    Latest News
    Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
    May 18, 2025
    The Critical Role of Healthcare in Personal Injury Recovery: A Comprehensive Guide for Victims
    May 14, 2025
    The Backbone of Successful Trials: Clinical Data Management
    April 28, 2025
    Advancing Your Healthcare Career through Education and Specialization
    April 16, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: The 4 Keys of Improved ED Throughput
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Business > Finance > The 4 Keys of Improved ED Throughput
BusinessFinanceHospital Administration

The 4 Keys of Improved ED Throughput

Abby Norman
Last updated: September 5, 2014 8:00 am
Abby Norman
Share
9 Min Read
Improved ED Throughput
SHARE

Improved ED ThroughputFor many healthcare organizations, the emergency room is the hub of high-speed drama and intrigue, and with these qualifiers comes the reality of financial impact. An emergency department’s ability to consistently bring in revenue will either make or break it – so, how can hospitals assure that their throughput is sufficient?

Contents
1. Understand the queue – Improved ED Throughput 2. Value transparency – Improved ED Throughput3. Consider letting someone else do the paperwork – Improved ED Throughput4. Get LEAN – Improved ED Throughput

Improved ED ThroughputFor many healthcare organizations, the emergency room is the hub of high-speed drama and intrigue, and with these qualifiers comes the reality of financial impact. An emergency department’s ability to consistently bring in revenue will either make or break it – so, how can hospitals assure that their throughput is sufficient?

1. Understand the queue – Improved ED Throughput 

Queuing up- or, “standing in line” as we tend to casually say- is something that we all do from time to time in various social situations where we need to patiently wait for our turn – at the grocery store, the bank or perhaps most notoriously, the Department of Motor Vehicles. Queuing up for medical services- particularly emergency medical services – however, is undesirable.

If you have patients waiting for services then you already have an issue within your ED workflow: you don’t have enough supply for the demand, where supply is your staff and demand, of course, are your patients. While a doctor’s office with a certain number of patients may be able to accurately schedule just enough patients for the staff available on a given day, an emergency room is at the beck and call of the patients. One day, an emergency room census might get so low that nurses are sent home – other days, nurses who are not scheduled or physicians who have requested time-off may need to be pulled in to meet the need for treating more patients than would be considered average.

More Read

How a Well-Designed Doctor’s Office Could Help Patients
Boosting Hospital Efficiency With The Right EMR Systems
Navigating Through the Essentials: Medical Billing Training for Beginners
Innovating Medicaid for Healthcare Reform
How Hospital Execs Can Keep Up in the Fast-Paced Tech World

While it’s impossible to know, precisely, how many patients your ED will see in a day, by looking at your census on a longitudinal axis, you can perhaps see events and seasons that seem to correspond with an uptick in utilization. Perhaps you find that during the week of an annual festival in your community, your census jumps up beginning the first weekend and continuing into the subsequent week, since there are more people in town than usual. When it comes to scheduling, you can prepare yourself next year by requiring additional staff to work during that time.

You can also be looking ahead for potential outbreaks which may be soon to affect your demographic area – perhaps, then, you would have more doctors or nurses on call in anticipation of more cases.

For many reasons, both practical and psychological, people don’t enjoy waiting. Furthermore, many patients don’t understand the concept of triage – they think, naturally, that if they arrived before someone else they should be treated first. They grow resentful and frustrated when someone comes in and gets medical attention straight away when they have been waiting for, perhaps, an hour.

To help clarify, it might be helpful to post informational graphics that are easy to comprehend and read in your waiting room, and to have staff be prepared to give a simple but enforceable explanation of the triage process.

2. Value transparency – Improved ED Throughput

To piggy-back on the previous tip, it should be said that no matter how prepared you are most days, there will inevitably be events that you could not have adequately prepared for. Accidents or public health crisis require a different kind of preparedness – the ability to communicate that your department is in the midst of chaos, but that you have procedures in place to make sure things are still running smoothly.

In times like these, what you can’t offer patients is usually a timeline – because this has become a variable that you no longer have any control over. What you can do, however, is improve their confidence by exhibiting humble transparency about the situation and assuring them that everyone is doing their job and working to the top of their licensure in an attempt to keep things orderly and efficient.

That being said, in times of distress patients deserve your honesty. You’d always be surprised at how far simple social graces can get you in trying times. Consistent updates, rounding and even just acknowledging the patient’s patience (a simple “thank you” will do) means a lot more to an anxious waiting room than feeling forgotten about. 

3. Consider letting someone else do the paperwork – Improved ED Throughput

Many doctor’s offices nationwide have made use of scribes to eliminate the need for primary care physicians to sit behind a computer and document during an office visit. In the high-turnover environment of an emergency room, document-as-you-go technology isn’t practical for physicians and nurses. That is, unless there was a specific role in the ED who could provide this service.

No doubt taking the real-time documenting responsibility from the medical staff would speed things up and allow doctors more time to diagnose and treat patients. Hiring medical scribes, who are often graduate medical students, to work alongside medical staff and “do the paperwork” can be an asset to a bustling department. Furthermore, these young grad students are often at the crux of technological advancement and many of them can double in “super user” roles for electronic medical record systems, which all contributes to medical staff doing more hands on patient care, and less hands on computer keyboards.

4. Get LEAN – Improved ED Throughput

Lean management has taken healthcare by storm in the last several years. Many hospitals are using the management style throughout the organizations – including the emergency department.

The general idea behind Lean management is increasing efficiency, improving value and reducing waste. These general principles work for any business, but are particularly of interest to healthcare organizations. Some Lean tactics that have been increasingly implemented in emergency departments are open-bed assignment, rapid-triage and using Ishikawa diagrams to identify areas of waste.

In a previous series on Lean management, guest blogger Patrick Christopher discussed the increasing momentum of Lean management in healthcare organizations nationwide. He defines the Lean process as follows:

  1. Identification of customer value
  2. Management of “value stream”
  3. Developing capabilities of flow production
  4. Use of “pull” mechanisms to support flow of materials at constrained operations
  5. Pursuit of perfection through reducing to zero all forms of “waste”

In healthcare, you can consider patients your customers and think about value in terms of the care that patients receive at your facility. Focusing on increasing patient satisfaction and the value of the care you provide will take you a long way in terms of creating a more sustainable -and competitive- healthcare organization.

TAGGED:emergency department
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share
By Abby Norman
My name is Abby Norman and I am a healthcare blogger. With over 10 years of experience in the medical field, I have developed a passion for helping others understand the complexities of healthcare.

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Clinical Expertise
Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
Health care
May 18, 2025
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Health
May 15, 2025
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Health
May 15, 2025
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction heart treatment
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction
Cardiology
May 13, 2025

You Might also Like

DC Conference: FDA At A Crossroads

November 8, 2011

Google Plus Telemedicine: Is The Patient Ready?

February 11, 2012
Lean_Processes
Business

The Benefits of Lean Processes in Radiology Practice Management

November 30, 2014

NCQA Accreditation: Failure vs. Success

July 16, 2015
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?