Susan Chonko, RN, MSN, clinical director of Patient Progression
Last month, Michele Volpe observed in her Vantage Point that PPMC continues to prioritize patient progression and has been making gains by shortening lengths of stay, decreasing readmissions, and increasing earlier discharges. As the clinical director of Patient Progression, I thought it would be valuable to shed additional light on these developments and on how we plan to further improve patient movement.
“Patient progression” refers to the movements of a patient from admission to discharge, and the goal is to make this process as safe, efficient, and timely as possible without compromising the quality of care.
Earlier this year, a multidisciplinary team of case managers, physicians, nurses, nursing administrative coordinators, quality improvement staff, and PPMC’s patient access work group joined forces to launch the SEND (Safe Efficient New Discharge) project on a cardiology unit. SEND aims to assess a unit’s state of care and to increase the total number of patients who can be discharged from the hospital by 12 p.m. The team followed patients through their experiences and identified barriers that could disrupt care, lengthen hospitalizations, and delay the transfer of new patients to available rooms. Their feedback highlighted opportunities for change, and after making a range of workflow adjustments, the unit was successful in increasing their discharges by noon.
I’m hopeful that we can continue to build off the success of SEND by expanding it to other units and different patient populations. Providers have started to receive reports detailing how their units and teams are doing with regard to discharges by noon. Regularly capturing and disseminating this information allows staff to see how they compare to their colleagues and more readily identify areas for improvement.
It’s also important to remember that advancing our patient progression goals isn’t dependent on our clinical teams alone — the transport team is also integral in getting patients to the next stage of their care, and Environmental Services has been working hard to quickly clean patient rooms and expedite turnover. By combining efforts towards the same goal, PPMC’s clinical and support teams can ensure patients receive the right care at the right time and in the right setting.
Effective discharge plans begin the moment a patient is admitted. By creating a more effective workflow, strengthening communication between staff, and providing efficient care without sacrificing quality, we will be able to continue discharging more eligible patients before noon, provide incoming patients with improved access and timely care, and ultimately improve the overall patient experience.