Patient throughput means how patients move through a healthcare center from when they arrive until they leave. Hospitals need smooth patient flow to avoid too many people waiting, delays, and wasted resources. Crowding, especially in emergency rooms, ICUs, and patient wards, causes longer wait times and lowers the quality of care. It can also raise the chance of patient sickness and death and make it harder for staff to work well.
For example, in many U.S. hospitals, patients wait more than an hour and a half just to get a room in the emergency department. Sometimes, the wait before leaving the emergency room is more than two hours. These delays make patients unhappy and put more pressure on nurses. When nurses have more patients, there is a 6 to 9 percent higher chance that patients will need to return to the hospital. So, fixing patient flow problems is very important for giving care on time and helping staff do their jobs well.
Patient throughput also affects how much it costs to run a hospital and how many patients it can handle. When patient flow is slow, patients can get stuck waiting because there are not enough beds or staff. This is called boarding, where patients stay in emergency hallways while waiting for beds. Boarding raises risks for patients and slows down care. Some hospitals, like Stony Brook University Hospital, use special rules to move admitted patients to different hallways during busy times. This helps reduce waiting in the emergency room and keeps patients safer.
Studies by Philip Åhlin and others show that hospitals often have trouble moving patients fast. These problems include long waiting times, poor coordination of available space, and slow patient handoffs between departments. These issues happen because there are not enough staff, and some hospitals do not have clear, standard ways to handle patient flow.
Many hospitals try to fix these problems by hiring more workers or making bigger spaces. But this can be expensive and may not always work well, especially when budgets are tight and workers are hard to find. Instead, hospitals need plans that use all their resources smartly. They should set clear routines and use technology to help patients move quicker.
Hospitals in the U.S. have tried different ways to move patients faster through their care. These methods focus on different steps in the patient’s visit. Below are some strategies that have worked well:
Hospitals can form teams with people from all departments, such as doctors, nurses, administration, transport, and IT. This team looks for where delays happen and sets clear goals to improve flow. They know that a hold-up in one area, like lab tests or finding beds, can cause bigger problems later.
Some hospitals, like NYU Langone Medical Center, try to discharge patients early in the morning. This frees up beds faster for new patients. After making changes like daily planning meetings and using electronic tracking systems, they increased morning discharges from under 15% to over 40%. Early discharges also help patients get home care, medications, and nurse visits sooner, which helps them recover better.
Monmouth Medical Center spread out elective surgeries more evenly over the week instead of putting many at the start. This reduced crowding after surgery and balanced the workload for nurses. This method also improved communication and allowed surgeons to keep their income without lowering care quality.
St. Louis Children’s Hospital set up a central call center run by experienced nurses. This center handles referrals, consults, bed assignments, and admissions all in one place. This system sped up admissions and improved communication, keeping intensive care transfers low after admission, at less than 1%.
Malden Family Medicine Center used a special scheduling system to match patients with their usual care teams as much as possible. This helped patients stay engaged with their care and follow treatment plans better. It also lowered avoidable emergency visits and hospital stays.
Lean Healthcare methods focus on removing activities that don’t add value in healthcare processes. When used in clinics and hospitals, Lean methods helped reduce how long patients stayed and how long they waited.
A review of 40 studies showed that Lean helped reduce hospital stays for discharged patients in 11 out of 13 studies, and for admitted patients in 6 out of 7 studies. Patient wait times before seeing doctors or nurses went down in 24 of 26 studies. Waiting times for treatment and appointments also got shorter. More patients were able to get care instead of leaving without being helped.
Many studies showed patients were more satisfied after Lean methods were used. But there is still little information about cost savings or how staff felt, meaning more research is needed in these areas.
New technology helps hospitals see, coordinate, and automate their patient care better. Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) and digital workflow tools are especially helpful.
RTLS track patients, workers, and equipment using wearable devices or tags. They give real-time data about where patients are and how long they wait in different parts of the hospital. For example, Oregon Medical Group worked with CenTrak to connect RTLS to electronic health records, so staff can watch patient movement from arrival to discharge.
RTLS finds waiting times that manual tracking often misses. This helps administrators fix slow parts, adjust staff levels based on patient numbers, and change processes to speed things up. Hospitals using RTLS say staff feel less stressed because they don’t have to do manual tracking and can focus more on patient care.
Using self-service kiosks and electronic forms makes patient check-in and discharge faster and cuts down lines. Data systems collect patient flow data to help leaders make decisions, like moving staff to busy areas in emergencies or wards.
Hospitals also use real-time dashboards to watch patient status, bed availability, and when patients are ready to leave. These tools help teams plan care and keep leaders aware of patient flow problems.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming important for healthcare leaders who want to make patient flow better while saving money and improving patient experience. AI systems can look at huge amounts of hospital data to predict how many patients will come, suggest staffing needs, and recommend scheduling changes.
One AI use is for front-office phone calls. For example, Simbo AI handles appointment scheduling and patient questions automatically. This cuts down on call wait times, stops missed appointments, and makes work easier for staff.
These AI systems connect with patient management software to update calendars instantly, send reminders, and sort patient requests before they reach clinical workers. This helps patients stay engaged and reduces missed appointments or delays in care.
AI can also study past patient flow data to predict demand surges so hospitals can prepare better. It uses information like illness seasons, local events, and past admission trends to manage staff and beds in real time.
AI also supports decisions when admitting or discharging patients by analyzing health data and suggesting the best care plans. This can cut unnecessary hospital days while keeping patients safe.
For people running healthcare centers in the U.S., fixing patient flow needs changes in how hospitals work and investments in technology:
By combining teamwork and technology, hospitals can improve patient flow, reduce crowding, and provide safer and faster care. Working together across departments and using new tools will help healthcare centers handle more patients despite limits on staff and money.
Improving patient throughput in U.S. healthcare is a tough but important task. How well patients move from arrival to leaving affects their health and how well hospitals work. To fix these issues, hospitals need to overcome problems with logistics, staffing, and processes by working together and using technologies like RTLS, automation, and AI. Medical practice leaders and IT staff have a key role in making care faster, safer, and more focused on patients.
Patient throughput describes the movement of patients from arrival to discharge, involving the care, resources, and decision-making required to efficiently transition patients through a healthcare facility.
Improving patient flow is crucial for ensuring patient safety, reducing wait times, enhancing care quality, decreasing operational costs, and improving staff satisfaction and productivity.
Creating a patient flow team with representatives from all departments can help identify bottlenecks, set goals, and improve communication essential for optimizing throughput.
Non-clinical staff, such as those in transportation and administration, significantly impact patient flow; their efficiency can be enhanced through training and technology adoption.
Real-time location systems (RTLS) can capture patient throughput data automatically, revealing blind spots in patient wait times and enabling adjustments to workflow processes.
Cycle time measures the duration of processes within the hospital. Reducing cycle times can enhance patient throughput and outcomes, making it essential for operational efficiency.
An effective hospital layout facilitates staff and patient navigation, reduces bottlenecks, and encourages smooth workflows by providing clear signage and logical pathways.
Training staff on time management techniques and technology usage can improve efficiency and productivity, ultimately benefiting patient care.
Data analytics facilitate informed decision-making by offering insights into patient workflows and identifying inefficiencies, allowing for targeted improvements.
Technologies like RTLS and automated patient management systems help improve patient flow by enhancing communication, data visibility, and operational efficiencies throughout the hospital.
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