When Queue Management’s team analyzes your ED operations and helps implement the changes that enable your staff to work smarter instead of harder, everyone wins.
​
Your staff is no longer stretched too thin, patients move quickly—and safely—through your organization, and you’re able to see a financial return on investment when your demand is more accurately matched to your facility’s resources.
You can expect to see:
​
-
Higher patient satisfaction scores
-
Shorter wait times
-
More efficient patient flow
-
Higher financial performance
-
Improved quality metrics
-
Better balance between costs and outcomes
For example, our proposed ED optimizations could enable your emergency department to meet or exceed the following benchmarks:
-
Arrival-to-Provider Evaluation within 20 minutes
-
Left Without Being Seen (LWBS) rate of less than 1%
-
Arrival-to-Disposition Decision within 120 minutes
-
No ambulance diversion and decreased hallway care
PATIENT EXPERIENCE IN THE EMERGENCY DEPARMENT
Whether it’s called patient experience, patient satisfaction, or service excellence, the goal is the same: provide patients with quality, compassionate care in a timely matter. In this “three-legged stool” of patient experience, all three legs are equally important.
-
Quality: If patients perceive that the quality of care was poor, they will be dissatisfied. Often, patients can’t tell if their care was good or bad. Amputate the wrong limb, leave an instrument behind during surgery, or misdiagnose cancer and you’ve lost. But other perceptions of poor quality are more subtle. It’s always important to explain to patients what your providers have done for them and why. Without an explanation of the services provided, they have no ability to assess the quality of care.
-
Timeliness of care: No one likes to wait, and once that time threshold is crossed, patient dissatisfaction rises. Think about it: if someone makes you wait 15 minutes, it’s no big deal. But 20 minutes? Too long to wait without an explanation.
-
Kindness: We make patients wait for hours, and while there may be many reasons for the wait—too many patients or not enough doctors, nurses, or beds—being unfriendly never helps the situation. Making eye contact and greeting the patient with a smile can go a long way toward patient satisfaction. How we interact with patients has a dramatic impact on their experience—and ours as well.
ENGAGING PHYSICIANS
A critical component to moving the needle on operational metrics is engaging and empowering physicians in this process. As emergency physicians ourselves, we’ve been there. Our coaching services arm physicians with the business management and executive leadership skills needed to improve emergency department patient flow, clinical operations, and service delivery.