Nursing Department (Mss Woods, Bates-Jackson, and Nwankwo, Dr Sandoval, and Mr Vermillion) and Quality Improvement Department (Drs Canamar and Sarff), LAC + USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
J Nurs Care Qual. 2020 Jul/Sep;35(3):240-244. doi: 10.1097/NCQ.0000000000000469.
Patient flow, from emergency department admission through to discharge, influences hospital overcrowding. We aimed to improve patient flow by increasing discharge lounge (DL) usage.
Patients need to receive a continuum of nursing care to encourage compliance with follow-up care after discharge from the acute care setting.
Baseline data revealed inefficient use of the DL. We targeted the medical-surgical unit with the lowest DL use and trialed interventions over sequential Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles.
After surveying the nursing staff, we assessed the influence of 3 interventions on DL usage: educating staff on patient eligibility, engaging a recruitment scout, and displaying a visual cue notifying staff when a patient's discharge order was written.
The unit's average DL use increased from 18% to 36%, while hospital overcrowding and discharge turnaround time decreased.
The DL is an effective tool to improve patient flow and decrease hospital overcrowding.
从急诊入院到出院的患者流程会影响医院的拥挤程度。我们旨在通过增加使用离院休息室（DL）来改善患者流程。
患者需要接受连续的护理，以鼓励他们在离开急性护理环境后遵守后续护理。
基线数据显示 DL 的使用效率低下。我们以 DL 使用量最低的内科-外科病房为目标，并在连续的计划-执行-研究-行动循环中试用了干预措施。
在对护理人员进行调查后，我们评估了 3 项干预措施对 DL 使用的影响：教育工作人员有关患者资格的知识，聘请招募人员，以及显示视觉提示，通知工作人员何时下达患者的出院医嘱。
该病房的平均 DL 使用量从 18%增加到 36%，同时医院拥挤程度和出院周转时间减少。
DL 是改善患者流程和减少医院拥挤程度的有效工具。
