A New Process to Improve Throughput in the Emergency Department

Emergency departments face numerous, complex challenges that can negatively affect the quality of patient care and patient outcomes. These challenges include overcrowding, boarding, extended waiting times, and surges in census. Individualized process improvement plans must be evaluated and executed to offset the negative effects of these complex challenges. In an effort to improve overall throughput and patient outcomes, a goal-driven, front-end process was implemented in an emergency department to increase efficiency in assessing, treating, and diagnosing nonemergent, low-acuity patients who present for care. •Improved emergency department throughput and patient outcomes.