Document Type

A3

Publication Date

9-5-2019

Institution/Department

Critical Care Medicine, Maine Medical Center

MeSH Headings

workflow, outpatient, urgent care center, patients, delivery of care, triage, discharge, satisfaction, quality improvement, goal, root cause analysis

Abstract

An outpatient urgent care unit was experiencing challenges in balancing the need to register patients and delivering care in the timeliest manner as possible. Upon examination, it was found that delays were being experienced in patient triage and discharge that resulted in low patient satisfaction scores.

A team of providers was established to review all process steps and a quality improvement project was created to attain a goal of 100% of the time discharge would not be delayed due to incomplete registration.

Baseline metrics demonstrated current numbers of delayed discharges, median time from door to triage as well as door to room. A root cause analysis outlined numerous workflow issues and several countermeasures were initiated.

As a result of hardwiring workflow changes, a decrease in delayed discharges as well decrease in the median time from door to triage and door to room was realized. Next steps include the creation of future countermeasures for improvement.

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