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What’s the connection between the ED and patient flow?

Case Management Weekly, March 24, 2004

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What's the connection between the ED and patient flow?

When you have flow problems in any part of the hospital, they will always be reflected in the ED. For example, a patient whose discharge is dependent on a particular test result is told that the laboratory won't have the test result until the next morning. The patient, therefore, must remain in the hospital for at least another 12 hours. Meanwhile, another patient who is undergoing elective surgery the next morning is supposed to be admitted to that bed. The surgeon, aware that the elective procedure will generate substantial revenue, does not want to reschedule it. She decides to board the surgical patient in the ED until the inpatient bed becomes available. You can see how the ED could quickly fill up with boarders. Eventually, the ED will be unable to accept new arrivals because the lab cannot provide a test result quickly enough.

Source: Bud Pate, director of clinical operations for The Greeley Company, a division of HCPro, Inc. Pate, author of Solving Emergency Department Overcrowding: Successful Approaches to a Chronic Problem, an HCPro, Inc. publication, http://www.hcmarketplace.com.

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