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Patient Flow Enewsletter
Volume 2, Issue 6
Thursday, December 8, 2005

In this Issue:

Best Practices: Using ED Dashboards and Real-Time Data to Improve Operational Efficiency
Innovations: Providing Healthcare for the Acute Mentally Ill: A Community Response
Now Available: 2005 and 2004 Conference Materials
Responses to Your Questions: Joseph Twanmoh, M.D., Elaborates on the Triage Bypass System
Perspectives: Forecasting Demand: Being Proactive with Patient Flow

Best Practices
Using ED Dashboards and Real-Time Data to Improve Operational Efficiency

From ATMs to online banking to airline check-in kiosks, our world is driven by information technology. A team at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City decided that they needed a patient information tracking system. The challenge was to overcome the seven 'time warps' that patients may pass through -- and even get hung up in -- on a trip through the ED. The solution was to build a data dashboard -- a header on the tracking system that clearly shows key ED operations -- that is continuously updated by real-time data from the tracking system.

Innovations
Providing Healthcare for the Acute Mentally Ill: A Community Response

It all began with a friendly enough invitation when Dr. David Hnatow, MD, Associate Professor and Chief of Emergency Medicine at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, was called in to the San Antonio Police Department. Two years later, an unconventional partnership between local law enforcement agencies and medical directors evolved into the opening of a Crisis Care Center.

Conference Materials are Now Available
Perfecting Patient Flow: Proven Solutions to ED Crowding

2005 and 2004 Conference Materials include:

Agenda, session descriptions and speaker bios
PowerPoint presentations
Audio recordings of the presentations
Additional resources provided by the speakers

Responses to Your Questions
Joseph Twanmoh, M.D., Elaborates on the Triage Bypass System

In the last issue, we featured a best practice article titled "Triage Bypass Improves Door-to-Bed Times." The author, Joseph Twanmoh, M.D., responds to the following questions submitted by enewsletter readers:

What happens when beds are not available in the ED?
There is a great description of the "old system," but what are the details of the bypass system?
How do you factor in getting admitted patients up to their beds on the floors?
What is the use of Urgent Care Centers in your area, and does that affect your ability to implement the triage bypass?

Perspectives
Forecasting Demand: Being Proactive with Patient Flow

Although built for only 30,000 patients annually, the emergency department of the OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, IL, sees more than 60,000 per year. Recently, a committee was assembled to examine the hospital's current process for capacity and patient flow, and come up with potential improvements. One solution became clear -- instead of discussing the immediate issues of capacity and patient flow, focus on using data to predict where future problems may be and what can be done in advance to prevent them.