The Emergency Department at St. Lucie Medical Center has a process in place decreasing patient wait times by focusing attention on the front end, triage process. In the past, someone greeted patients, then they were triaged and had to return to the lobby to wait for an empty bed. Sometimes the wait could range from 60 minutes to several hours.
By establishing 8 virtual beds in a sub-waiting room in the ED, a patient is greeted and moved directly to an empty bed for triage and the medical screening exam. If all beds are full, patients are moved into a waiting area known as the “subway” where there are eight chairs/recliners. Patients are triaged by an RN and seen by a PA to begin the exam, lab, x-rays etc. Once a bed is open, the patient is moved from the subway to an open exam room to conclude their visit. Patients waiting to be discharged are also moved to this room to allow a new patient into the exam room. The new process has shown significant improvement in dramatically decreasing the number of patients leaving without being seen, down from an average of 250+ monthly to only 16. Also the length of patient visits has decreased from an average high of 270 minutes to 217 minutes. This improvement was seen despite an increase of 200 patient visits. Patient satisfaction rates have also improved.
