The Urgent Matters toolkit is a collection of strategies and tools designed to target specific issues facing hospital emergency departments. This toolkit has been developed by hospitals across the country in conjunction with the Urgent Matters national program office at The George Washington University.
Many of these tools are now available on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website.
|
Problem to be resolved: An increasing patient volume and increasing wait times with space and resource constraints.
Related Resources
|
|
Problem to be resolved: From June 2006 to June 2009, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center (HPMC) was experiencing a readmissions rate for patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) that was higher than the national average. This indicates that patients were not receiving appropriate care and resources once discharged from the hospital and put HPMC at risk for a Medicare penalty beginning in 2013
Related Resources
|
|
Problem to be resolved: high patient volume and long wait times combined with low patient satisfaction.
Related Resources
|
|
Problem to be resolved: Inadequate follow-up with patients due to: Delays in results from diagnostic test performed in the ED. Test results provided hours or days after the patient has left the facility and demands on ED physicians’ time for follow-up and reporting which prevent them from providing essential care to patients.
Related Resources
|
|
Problem to be resolved: An assessment revealed a significant number of ED visits were for primary care treatable or preventable conditions, these visits were occurring during daytime hours, and capacity existed in San Diego’s community clinic network. Ineffective coordination of care between
the ED and its surrounding clinic network. Related Resources
|
|
Problem to be resolved: improve the quality of care for geriatric patients and reduce readmissions.
Related Resources
Geriatric Emergency Department Webinar: Listen to a Recording Download Dr. Rosenberg's Presentation
|
|
Telemedicine to Link Nursing Homes to the Emergency Department Problem to be resolved: The several thousands of transports from nursing homes to local emergency departments for care that are not needed.
Related Resources
|
|
Utilizing a Pediatric Emergency Preparedness Toolkit Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Implemented use of the "Care of Children in the Emergency Department: Guidelines for Preparedness Implementation" toolkit to improve the quality of care provided to children |
|
Treating Patients More Quickly with RACE The RACE project introduced a standardized process by which each participating hospital designates a reperfusion and triage strategy for STEMI patients to decrease door-to-balloon times for percutaneous coronary intervention. |
|
Decreasing Emergency Department (ED) Throughput Time by Using a Discharge Resource Room Approximately 60 percent of all medical/surgical patients are now discharged from the DRR. The new procedure, which provides an inpatient bed more rapidly, has had a significant effect on decreasing ED throughput time. |
|
Improving Patient Satisfaction in the Emergency Department (ED) with a Call Back Clerk Staff developed a dedicated position, the Call Back Clerk, and a user-friendly database to conduct individual patient follow-up calls after discharge from the ED. |
|
Emergency Department Nurse Recruitment and Retention A team was assembled to develop an initiative to improve nurse recruitment and retention, including internal and external recruitment strategies, comprehensive training, and a mentoring program for new ED nurses. The goal of this intervention was to improve nurse. |
|
Reducing Emergency Department Crowding Through the Full Capacity Protocol Stony Brook University Hospital implemented a Full Capacity Protocol policy, a system wide policy to better utilize space and staff throughout the hospital rather than allowing admitted patients to accumulate in the ED when the inpatient units lack appropriate beds. |
|
Improving Emergency Department (ED) Flow With a Care Management Unit (CMU) Staff created a seven-bed Care Management Unit with four dedicated nurses and four dedicated case managers to reduce the number of boarders. |
|
Reducing Turnaround Time for Fast Track Emergency Department (ED) Patients The Fast Track service allows patients with acute but non-life-threatening conditions to be treated more quickly and then released. This system is designed to improve the efficiency and decrease the waiting time in the ED when the greatest numbers of people seek. |
|
A No-Tech Solution for Reducing Hospital Bed Turnaround Time Staff developed a simple communication system between housekeeping and nurses by using jars with color-coded slips of paper that allowed staff to easily track beds that were available or that needed cleaning. The goal of this intervention was to improve patient flow by. |
|
Shifting Nurse Schedules to Match ED Demand Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif. matched the nursing staff schedule with patient volume and increased nurse retention. |
|
Shifting Surgery Schedules to Reduce Patient Bed Bottlenecks Staff at Boston Medical Center implemented a new vascular surgery schedule that placed a limit on the number of daily elective surgeries. |
|
Reducing Turnaround Time for Fast Track Emergency Department (ED) Patients The Fast Track service allows patients with acute but non-life-threatening conditions to be treated more quickly and then released. This system is designed to improve the efficiency and decrease the waiting time in the ED when the greatest numbers of people seek. |
|
Improving Emergency Department (ED) Throughput by Registering Patients by Acuity Working to address throughput issues in the busy and frequently overcrowded ED at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, a team implemented a registration system in which patients are first triaged and then assigned a color code based on acuity. |
