Case Studies
The ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ Association produces case studies on its member organizations across a wide range of health-care topics.
Surgical site infections (SSI) lead to patient suffering, morbidity and mortality, extended length of stay and avoidable costs of additional care. SSI rates are disproportionately higher among patients following colorectal surgery, occurring in 5 to 45 percent of cases at an average cost of $26,000…
Operational and physician leaders identified an opportunity to decrease the use of off-site telemetry monitors. Evidence indicated that decreasing use would reduce cost, increase the number of available beds and decrease alarm fatigue. The issue was further prioritized by the problems caused when…
The goal was to reduce delay in patient care by decreasing patient wait times for a CT exam from requested time to start time in the emergency department. Process defects were identified as CT exams that a patient was not ready for and point of care testing not being used on patients who required…
Limited provider appointment availability in the clinic was causing delays for patients seeking care, decreased patient satisfaction, increased wait time and lost revenue associated with patients who were unable to adequately schedule appointments. A 10 month review of inbound telephone data…
Turnaround time for immunohistochemistry (IHC) stains in the laboratory of a 500 bed tertiary care, Level I trauma center was 6.4 hours for morning orders and 19.3 hours for afternoon orders, resulting in delayed diagnosis and treatment of patients. Reducing turnaround times would give physicians…
Venous thromboembolism (VTE), defined as a deep vein thrombosis and/or pulmonary emboli, is linked to increased hospital length of stay, increased cost of care, readmissions, disability and death. A 500 bed tertiary medical center recognized patients were at an increased risk for development of VTE…
The goal was to reduce anesthesia's postoperative evaluation errors to less than 10 percent of all cases using Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Errors included inpatient evaluations that were not signed, dated, timed or completed within 24 hours of surgery end time.
Managing the flow of patient throughput is essential to preventing overcrowding in the emergency department (ED)—reducing the number of patients who leave without treatment and improving the timeliness of patient care and patient safety. Effective management of processes that support patient…
The goal of this project was to standardize protocols for controlling patient pain following total knee replacement procedures. Improved pain control is associated with earlier mobility, reduced length of stay, reduced postsurgical complications such as venous thromboembolism and pulmonary embolism…
The Reducing Readmissions: Making Data Real project decreased acute rehospitalization rates by almost half. This was accomplished by doing more of whatever worked and going back to the basics, educating staff with patient stories shared by patient educators and creating a sense of ownership in the…