Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (GMC-LSS-GB)

Emergency Department Patient Flow and Wait Time Analysis

Abstract

Elite Hospital emergency room wait times and delays have serious patient care implications that can directly impact the patient’s health. Senior leadership at hospital are interested in determining the factors that influence the current wait times in the relentless effort of achieving the highest quality of care through continuous quality improvement initiatives for their respected patient population. One of these initiatives is to better manage patient flow in the Emergency Department so that all patients consistently receive the appropriate amount of care without unnecessary delays or degradation of service quality.

The Emergency Department (ED) has been selected as the pilot site for a hospital wide project to improve patient flow.  You are assigned to the project team as an analyst with the initial responsibility to

1) conduct an analysis of historical data to establish a baseline understanding of the current ED patient flow and wait times.

2) based on the findings, identify areas that should be explored further as potential opportunities for improvement. Your recommendations will help the team to know where to focus their efforts as the specific project scope is further defined. 

Exercise :- Specific questions include the following

  • What is the total number of patients seen in the ED ?
  • What is the average wait time for:
  1. Triage to clinic :
  2. Time in clinic :
  3. Total time in ED :
  • How many patients were seen in the morning, evening, and night shifts? Is there variation amongst shifts?

Morning :

Evening:

Night Shift:

  • Create a Histogram of the CTAS levels.Add data labels
  • What is the average LOS (Total time in ED) for the different CTAS levels? Create a graph
  • In terms of Lean methodology, what is value-added and non-value added for the patient in the above process?
  • What areas of the process would you aim to improve?
  • How would you proceed in addressing wait time and ED patient flow?
  • How would you structure the project(s)?
  • What additional data or information would be beneficial in making any recommendations/improvements?