Reduced waiting times, more emergency department beds and a better patient experience are just a few of the benefits two U.S. hospitals have seen since opening 'discharge lounges.'
Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital in Palos Heights, Ill., and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston both established discharge lounge spaces in recent years that are designed to keep patients comfortable, safe and in a separate area from the ED while they wait to go home.
Palos Hospital's discharge lounge opened in December 2022, according to Southland, and since then it claims it has reduced what was an average discharge wait time of four hours down to one.
Similarly, Mass General's discharge lounge — which launched in 2020 as a pilot program — boasts that its discharge lounge has also brought down the average wait time to around one hour.
The two hospitals have found that finding a new way to continuously move patients through departments and hospital processes to their eventual discharge — all while in the midst of a nationwide healthcare staffing shortage nonetheless — not only improves capacity, but also patient experience.
Since opening its discharge lounge, Palos Hospital said 49 percent fewer patients have left the ED without being seen due to shorter wait times for the ones who need care most, according to Southland. As a result, patient experience scores both for inpatient and its ED have improved.
Mass General's lounge now serves 125 patients or more each month and said it also gives patients in the lounge free meal vouchers as well as transportation support services as needed.
Other hospitals could follow suit in an aim to solve their own ongoing challenges around discharge delays and capacity, which have been issues plaguing the healthcare system even more since COVID-19.
A recent report from Massachusetts found that discharge delays were to blame for what was revealed to be around 15 percent of medical surgical beds in the state that are occupied by patients who no longer need acute care.
"A tremendous level of collaboration across healthcare," Steve Walsh, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association said in a June press release is what it will take "to resolve capacity issues."