Track: Six Sigma

Abstract

A major metropolitan hospital’s emergency department (ED) routinely provides some of the best patient satisfaction and processing time results among EDs in the Central Florida region through their Pink Pod, or Lean Pod; however, there are numerous opportunities to improve the process further by addressing systemic bottlenecks within existing operating procedures. The team sought to find opportunities to accomplish this while also establishing best practices and finding weaknesses within the existing system. Here we report the results of our Lean Six Sigma (LSS) effort toward improving an area of the ED that, statistically, is operating well but has the potential to perform even better. The team conducted explorative observations and interviews with medical staff and leadership to get a better understanding of existing procedures as well as employee concerns relating to Pink Pod processes and analyzed historical data collected and provided by the hospital to identify trends and key statistics. Ultimately, the team was able to pinpoint several causative factors affecting patient time-in-system and satisfaction, including issues with communication between departments, transportation of patients, the triage process, the implementation of team nursing, and gathering and disposing of equipment for use with or on patients. Remedying these issues helped to alleviate potential areas for delay and led to increased patient satisfaction and less time spent in the ED for patients in the Pink Pod. As a result of the project, the hospital has addressed many of the issues the team discovered, including adding more equipment, such as sharps bins; standardizing staffing with core groups of personnel for Pink Pod; and revisiting their registration and triage process to help ensure patients are evaluated properly before being assigned to their bed in the ED.