Slash door-to-doc time, boost patient approval.

With patient satisfaction in the single digits and door-to-doc times unacceptably high, the ED at Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, TN, initiated a staff-driven improvement effort aimed at weeding out inefficiencies. By putting the triage process under close scrutiny, staff members were able to eliminate dozens of tasks from the triage process, thereby slashing wait times. ED patient satisfaction has gone from the 5th percentile to the 98th percentile in just four months. A 44-step triage process has been streamlined into four steps, and average door-to-doc times have decreased from 67 minutes to 18 minutes. Further improvements are anticipated when ED administrators put staff scheduling under the same scrutiny.