When it comes to solving patient flow issues and improving capacity management – it helps to look at things from a system perspective and assess the role of people, technology, and processes in driving improved patient flow.

Let’s start with PEOPLE.
There is no doubt that any change in patient flow requires the cooperation of medical personnel, ancillary staff, and patients. Keeping patient needs first will help you determine the most critical issues, such as long wait times or insufficient communication with patients’ loved-ones regarding the progress of care.
With a patient-centered focus, you can evaluate possible technologies that help address patient flow issues (think – how we can improve our HCAHPS). As a nurse, I see Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) as the most effective technology to help us solve this problem.

Technology Aspect.
An RTLS solution gives you a real-time view of what is happening in your facility–freeing care providers from the time-consuming tasks of searching for patients and available rooms or equipment. This allows your staff to focus on the important task of caring for patient. Plus, with the communication capabilities of enterprise RTLS systems, you can effortlessly keep patient families informed (via mobile device or electronic display board) about the current status of their loved one.

Start with the end in mind.
Process improvement begins with recognition of the causes of patient flow problems and a willingness to make appropriate changes. To be successful, we need to specify our desired outcomes, consider all the process changes that need to take place, and obtain agreement for such changes from all constituencies affected by the process change.

With a well-defined plan, we can then initiate the changes and evaluate their true impact on patient flow. Understanding the actual impact on patient flow, with accurate measurements and metrics, is only possible by utilizing RTLS. An RTLS solution will provide you with various KPIs, such us door-to-triage, door-to-doc, or door-to-admit. Better yet, this data is automatically collected, so you can be assured about its accuracy and timeliness, and staff does not need to spend valuable time with manual data entry.

To help you visualize how patient flow improvements can be achieved with the use of RTLS solutions – we invite you to attend our upcoming webinar. On March 21, 2012, at noon CT – Mary Jagim, Intelligent InSites’ CNO and Lean Healthcare Green Belt, will talk about how RTLS can improve your hospital work flow and provide a better experience for the patient. She will share real-life examples of how RTLS technology can ensure smooth progression of patient care and streamlined handoffs as patients move throughout the hospital.

If you, or someone in your organization, would like to attend the “Improving patient flow with RTLS/RFID Solutions” webinar, please register by visiting http://www.intelligentinsites.com/resources/webinars.html.

We look forward to sharing insights on how to make healthcare more efficient, without cutting corners!

Shelly Schulz, RN
Education & Training Manager, Intelligent InSites