Patient Flow Consulting

Hospital operational efficiency and emergency room consulting

PATIENT FLOW CONSULTING

Improve Your Organization’s Patient Flow

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As many hospitals struggle with under-capacity and over-utilization of service, optimizing patient flow has become imperative. The process of moving the patient smoothly through the acute care system, admission to discharge, impacts patient, staff, and physician satisfaction, quality of care, and cost. The Sullivan Lakier Group offers experience and expertise in helping hospitals improve patient flow and ultimately increase satisfaction, improve quality, ensure hospital regulatory compliance, reduced cost, and enhance revenue.

PATIENT FLOW CONSULTING SERVICES:

We utilize a four step process in our consulting which is tailored to the level of support you need. These four steps typically are as follows;

Evaluate your entire patient flow process and system or specific areas identified and make recommendations for improvement
Develop an action plan to guide the improvement work for either your team or a combined hospital-consultant team
Provide project leadership or hands-on support for implementation as needed
Provide an operations dashboard and training that allows the organization to monitor progress and ensure the gains are maintained.

The areas of focus for a patient flow assessment typically fall into the following categories:

Inpatient admission process (all points of entry)
Emergency Department
ED Fast Track/Urgent Care
Outpatient admission process
“Overflow” and “Holding” areas
Accommodation codes
Inter and intradepartmental transfers and communication
Changes in levels of care
Case Management
Outpatient services and impact on patient flow
Discharge planning process
Capacity and demand by peak volume times and services required

BENEFITS OF OUR PATIENT FLOW CONSULTING SERVICES:

We will work with you to develop and implement strategies that result in:

Decreased admission delays
Decreased ED LOS
Decreased use of hall beds
Match bed and staff availability with demand
Minimize variation
Match staff competency with patient needs
Enhanced regulatory compliance
Increased patient satisfaction
Decreased patient inter and intradepartmental transfers
Improved communication between departments and staff concerning patient care

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