Moving patients through their hospital stay safely and efficiently is paramount to their care, satisfaction, and cost containment. Many factors contribute to a hospital’s ability to manage their average length of stay (LOS), however, you can leverage Epic to identify, improve, and/or alleviate some of those factors.
- Clinical Workflow Review: Conduct a thorough review of clinical workflows related to patient throughput such as ASAP Admissions, Case Management Discharge Planning, and Ancillary Results. This will improve the communication of status changes, necessary tasks, and other notifications that can lead to delays in transfers and discharges.
- Common Estimated Discharge Date: Ensure all groups are working from the same Estimated Discharge Date (EDD). Often times, the documented EDD is missed, outdated, or not visible within the right workflows, which leads to a lack of prioritization of tasks and delayed discharges. Analyzing workflows across clinical and access applications related to discharge planning can lead to the identification of a number of improvement opportunities.
- Discharge Milestones: Use integrated functionality, such as discharge milestones, to communicate progress across teams. Allow Bed Planning and Environmental Services staff to see necessary information to plan and facilitate timely bed assignment and bed turnover.
We understand the importance of healing your patients and discharging them to an appropriate level of care as quickly and safely as possible. Our experienced Epic experts can conduct the assessment noted above efficiently and effectively, providing you with recommendations that will help you achieve that goal.
