Mercy Health's Anderson Hospital in Cincinnati has reduced its emergency department wait time by 70 percent in three years by evaluating and updating processes through the Kaizen approach, according to a Cincinnati Business Courier report.
Using Kaizen, which is part of Lean management, a team of hospital leaders and front-line staff met to standardize processes and work toward continuous improvement. The 160-bed hospital changed patient flow such that physicians go to patients instead of the other way around, according to the report. A physician, nurse and technician collaborate to diagnose and treat the patient.
These changes reduced the average time from arrival to seeing a physician from 40 minutes to 12 minutes — a reduction of 70 percent. In addition, the number of people who leave the ED without being treated decreased from 2.1 percent to 0.3 percent, the number of people admitted from the ED increased 4 percent from May 2011 to this May and the average length of stay for admitted patients decreased from 394 minutes to 292 minutes.
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