Patient Flow Management System At St. George Hospital

Factors causing delay in Patient Flow in the cancer care centre

Discuss about the Patient Management System of St George Hospital.

Patient Flow management system of St. George hospital is refer to the movement or flow of patients, information and reports of patient’s flow of equipment between different departments and clinics, hospital staff-groups as a part of the patients’ care pathway. Therefore, patient flow refers to the movement care of patients through innumerable stages of care units (Mitchell, et al., 2015). Health care settings face a consistent problem when it comes to ensuring efficient, safe and swift patient flow within the hospital systems. Overcrowding of patients in the cancer health care centres and hospital may often lead to errors in service care and service delay by the hospital management systems (Nhavoto, Grönlund and Chaquilla, 2015). Apart from that, St. George hospital is facing certain issues in their patient management system, which needs to be rectified.

Patient supervision at St. George cancer care centre may also be hampered because of an inefficient and haphazard layout of the waiting areas of the patients that may eventually lead to more waiting time and the increase in the number of unattended patients leading to sheer chaos. This will create an overall negative impression on the patients about the health care systems making them more impatient thus hampering the quality of care that the patients expect to receive (Tirinato, et al., 2015).Hence it is extremely essential to address the problems that the outdoor patients encounter over the centre like having to wait while standing in long queues due to improper maintenance and huge traffic of unattended patients in the patient department sections.

Patient flow management refers to the efficiency of the St. George cancer care systems in order to serve the patients swiftly and efficiently. So, they can move on through the different stages and various processes of formalities. The general operational stages of patient flow may include diagnosis, references, admission and treatment and also there is a close relation between the clinical and the operational perspectives (Simms, et al., 2014). Reducing the time involved and attending the patients with the exact care at the right span of time. It will have a significant as well as a positive effect on the quality of St. George hospital care that the patients obtain, which will not only improve the patient outcomes but at the same time the care cost will also be reduced. Low consistent delivery will ultimately leads to larger duration and unsatisfied patients. Patient flow ultimately boils down to where patients and providers spend their time (Granados, et al., 2017)

Advantages of a Swift and Smooth flow of patients in the cancer care centre

However, it is important to ensure that swiftness of patient flow does not improve at the cost of safety measures and system reliability.

Patient Flow management methods are as follows:

Study of Time-motion
Interrupted Sheets
Audits charts
Direct Observation through Flow Mapping
Cycle-time measures
Patient Queuing

Issue are faced in the patient management system in the form of control of the number of patients on a regular basis. Different types of patients in terms of health care system (Boulware, et al., 2016). Clinic policies are based on the frequency of the visits of the patients. Type of doctors or medication provides the patients need to visit. Size and composition of providers and staffing models

Factors causing delay in Patient Flow in the cancer care centre

Waiting for the doctors or test results
Waiting for investigations performed inside or waiting for a specialist to come from outside
Waiting to find a hospital bed and evacuation of the existing patients
Waiting for ambulances in cases of emergencies
Waiting for patients’ attendants for the admission of patients
Patient acuity
Physician practice style
Layout of the physical facilities
Scheduling of visits
Seasonality
Low staff members
Delay in performing diagnostic tests
Delay in receiving the results of the tests
Delay in decision making by the patients’ team
The tendency of admitting new patients in the morning, but not discharging patients until the afternoon
Unavailability of staffs and services on weekends, nights and public holidays
The delay in the consultancy of the patients
The delay in preparing and cleaning beds for new patients

To identify the location of any bottleneck, the patients’ journey right from the entrance till the exit needs to be analysed (Leahy, et al., 2017). The aim should be to detect where the flow is slowed down within the overall care process. This can be done by developing a patient flow process map. The current reduction in the waiting times requires a reduction in the backlog of patients at every stage in the journey. Matching the capacity and demand is an important approach for removal of the visible and hidden backlogs on the pathway of the patients (Breen, et al., 2015). By concentrating on the bottlenecks of the system, the supply of the demands can be managed by keeping a smooth flow of the patients that will in turn reduce the waiting time of the patients.

Advantages of a Swift and Smooth flow of patients in the cancer care centre

Customer satisfaction
Reduced Cycles
Better Delivery
More Capacity
Better Quality
Increased Productivity
Smooth and efficient working environment

Principles of Good Patient flow Management

Listed below are the principles for improving the operational efficiency at the time of designing the plans of the cancer care centre.

The movement pattern of the patient flow needs to be observed
Separating patient flow and other staff members will diminish overcrowding
Interdependent movements should be focused
Time taken by staffs to travel should be analysed
Decreasing the geographical distance to be travelled by patients and staffs, would minimise the number of trips needed to travel.
Visual and physical accessibility to the spatial layouts have the ability to improve the operational efficiency
By moving the patients and the resources efficiently through the units, by minimizing the waiting time and the transport time will maximize patient satisfaction.
Spatial attributes include visibility, accessibility, connectivity and path distance.
The length of stay of patients in hospitals must be reduced
Discharge planning processes of patients must be improved
Patient flow software can be used to automate the admission and discharge processes and data can also be gathered for analysis (Nicholson, et al., 2016).
Different processes should be created to facilitate good and smooth patient flow throughout the hospitals (Simpao, et al., 2016).
Patients stuck in overflow locations should also receive proper care
Ambulance diversion decisions must be formalized before implementation.
The rate of morning discharges at hospitals must be increased.
Patient flow software can be used to automate the admission and discharge processes and data can be gathered for analysis (Lovett, Illg and Sweeney, B.E., 2016).
The time intervals between each sequential event that is necessary for patient care must be limited.
Maintaining quality, safety, completeness, empathy and personal attention in patient care is of utmost importance
Anything that may cause delay in the evaluation by the emergency physicians is detrimental (Hartrick, et al., 2016).
Everyone in the departments must be committed and co-operative with efficiency efforts.
Proper provision of emergent procedures always take precedence.
By making certain events simultaneous instead of sequential would increase work efficiency.
Spacious and enough seating allowance is essential for the accumulation of patients as well as visitors.
Lengthy and non-resuscitative procedures for patients who are definitely going to be admitted, should not delay the evaluation and disposition of patients with simple or minor problems.
Discharge procedures can be printed beforehand during suturing.
Associates must be encouraged to identify and eliminate waste on their own without delay.
Anomalies of performances must be identified and prioritized for improvements.
Improvement in the patient flow means increased efficiency and with extra capacity that can allow more generation of revenue per visits without adding to staffing costs.
Efficient planning of the discharge of the patients
Increased number of senior staffs to supervise junior staffs

To investigate Chart audits are best to solve a particular problem or process failure
First step is to identify a particular topic/focus of an audit
Chart audits may work only if the medical records document any useful data pertaining to certain issues
May be tied to the evaluation procedures, like timestamps on patient flow sheets
Chart audits can be applied to virtually any aspect of a clinic as long as it is included in the medical records, both clinical as well as operational
Answers consists of the Medical records already contain the answer to numerous questions
Chart audits may be used to identify a particular focus issue and the chart sample must be representative of that issue (Gupta, et al., 2015)
Identification of the longest process steps is allowed and alleviation of potential bottlenecks that can be through process reengineering or improvement
Paper chart and EMR or Enterprise Risk Management software “timestamps” can help in understanding the operational procedures and time spent in health care centres during a patient’s visit.

How patients move through the centre needs to be understood
Al the steps need to be documented in a process flow chart
Reasons for disrupted flow need to be evaluated and addressed
The level of customer service must be judged
Process redundancies must be identified
Determination of value added activities and non-value added activities.
Standardized procedures must be ensured
What a patient sees from entry to exit must be experienced
Variation in the process is inversely proportional to consistent delivery.
Activities that may occur after a patient leaves need to be identified

Conclusion

In the St. George hospital where the patient flow is obstructed due to waiting time and delays that occur in the operational procedures is known as bottlenecks of the system that brings interruption in the natural flow and hinders movement along the care pathways, finding the speed at which the entire process works. In this report the entire process of improvement in the patient management system of the cancer care centre were discussed.

References

Boulware, L.E., Cooper, L.A., Ratner, L.E., LaVeist, T.A. and Powe, N.R., 2016. Race and trust in the health care system. Public health reports.

Breen, S., Ritchie, D., Schofield, P., Hsueh, Y.S., Gough, K., Santamaria, N., Kamateros, R., Maguire, R., Kearney, N. and Aranda, S., 2015. The Patient Remote Intervention and Symptom Management System (PRISMS)–a Telehealth-mediated intervention enabling real-time monitoring of chemotherapy side-effects in patients with haematological malignancies: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial. Trials, 16(1), p.472.

Principles of Good Patient flow Management

Granados, R., Duarte, J.A., Corrales, T., Camarmo, E. and Bajo, P., 2017. Applying the Paris System for Reporting Urine Cytology increases the rate of atypical urothelial cells in benign cases: a need for patient management recommendations. Acta cytologica, 61(1), pp.71-76.

Gupta, V., Bollish, S.J., Berglund, G., Vanderveen, T.W., Davison, A., Halbert, D. and Guerra, J.J., CareFusion 303 Inc, 2015. Patient-specific medication management system. U.S. Patent 9,069,887.

Hartrick, C.T., Knapke, D.M., Ding, L., Danesi, H. and Jones, J.B., 2016. Fentanyl iontophoretic transdermal system versus morphine intravenous patient-controlled analgesia for pain management following orthopedic surgery: A pooled analysis of randomized, controlled trials. Journal of opioid management, 12(1), pp.37-45.

Leahy, M.F., Hofmann, A., Towler, S., Trentino, K.M., Burrows, S.A., Swain, S.G., Hamdorf, J., Gallagher, T., Koay, A., Geelhoed, G.C. and Farmer, S.L., 2017. Improved outcomes and reduced costs associated with a health?system–wide patient blood management program: a retrospective observational study in four major adult tertiary?care hospitals. Transfusion, 57(6), pp.1347-1358.

Lovett, P.B., Illg, M.L. and Sweeney, B.E., 2016. A successful model for a comprehensive patient flow management center at an academic health system. American Journal of Medical Quality, 31(3), pp.246-255.

Mitchell, D.G., Bruix, J., Sherman, M. and Sirlin, C.B., 2015. LI?RADS (Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System): Summary, discussion, and consensus of the LI?RADS Management Working Group and future directions. Hepatology, 61(3), pp.1056-1065.

Nhavoto, J.A., Grönlund, Å. and Chaquilla, W.P., 2015. SMSaude: design, development, and implementation of a remote/mobile patient management system to improve retention in care for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis patients. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 3(1).

Nicholson, W.K., Beckham, A.J., Hatley, K., Diamond, M., Johnson, L.S., Green, S.L. and Tate, D., 2016. The Gestational Diabetes Management System (GooDMomS): development, feasibility and lessons learned from a patient-informed, web-based pregnancy and postpartum lifestyle intervention. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 16(1), p.277.

Simms, H.D., Hoyme, K.P., Johnson, D.C., Srivathsa, M. and Kalgren, J.R., Cardiac Pacemakers Inc, 2014. System and method for managing alert notifications in an automated patient management system. U.S. Patent 8,781,847. Boulware, L.E., Cooper, L.A., Ratner, L.E., LaVeist, T.A. and Powe, N.R., 2016. Race and trust in the health care system. Public health reports.

Gupta, V., Bollish, S.J., Berglund, G., Vanderveen, T.W., Davison, A., Halbert, D. and Guerra, J.J., CareFusion 303 Inc, 2015. Patient-specific medication management system. U.S. Patent 9,069,887.

Simpao, A.F., Galvez, J.A., England, W.R., Wartman, E.C., Scott, J.H., Hamid Sr, M.M., Rehman, M.A. and Epstein, R.H., 2016. A technical evaluation of wireless connectivity from patient monitors to an anesthesia information management system during intensive care unit surgery. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 122(2), pp.425-429.

Tirinato, J.A., Maund, M.P., Machiaverna, P., Gibson, P.A., Vandersleen, G.J., Ibanez, R.M., Zaltsman, L. and Zelin, M.P., Abbott Point of Care Inc, 2015. Medical data acquisition and patient management system and method. U.S. Patent 9,015,055.

Turn in your highest-quality paper
Get a qualified writer to help you with

“ Patient Flow Management System At St. George Hospital ”

Get high-quality paper

NEW! AI matching with writer

Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:

Turnitin Report

Formatting

Title Page

Citation

Outline

Place an Order