Indirect impact of violent events on emergency department utilization and disease patterns.

BACKGROUND: The health effects of war and armed conflict on casualties and mental health of those directly exposed has been well described, but few studies have explored the indirect health effects of violent events. This paper assesses the indirect health impact of several violent events that took place in Beirut in 2013-2014 on ED visit utilization and disease patterns. METHODS: As tracked by media reports, there were 9 violent events in Beirut during 2013-2014. We compared visits to the Emergency Department of a major medical center during weeks when violent events happened and weeks without such events (the preceding week and the same week in preceding years). After re-coding de-identified data from the medical records of 23,067 patients, we assessed differences in the volume of visits, severity index, and discharge diagnoses. Individual control charts were used to analyze ED visit trends post-event. RESULTS: Comparisons of weeks with violent events and weeks without such events indicate that the socio-demographic characteristics of patients who visited the Emergency Department were similar. Patients seen during violent weeks were significantly more likely to be admitted to the hospital, and less likely to present with low acuity complaints, indicating greater complexity of their conditions. The discharge diagnoses that were significantly higher during violent event weeks included anxiety disorders, sprains, and gastritis. Daily ED visits dropped post events by 14.111%, p < 0.0001. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that violent events such as bombs, explosions, and terrorist attacks reverberate through the population, impact patterns of ED utilization immediately post-event and are associated with adverse health outcomes, even among those who are not directly affected by the events.

Improving Emergency Department radiology transportation time: a successful implementation of lean methodology.

BACKGROUND: Emergency Department overcrowding has become a global problem and a growing safety and quality concern. Radiology and laboratory turnaround time, ED boarding and increased ED visits are some of the factors that contribute to ED overcrowding. Lean methods have been used in the ED to address multiple flow challenges from improving door-to-doctor time to reducing length of stay. The objective of this study is to determine the effectiveness of using Lean management methods on improving Emergency Department transportation times for plain radiography. METHODS: We performed a before and after study at an academic urban Emergency Department with 49,000 annual visits after implementing a Lean driven intervention. The primary outcome was mean radiology transportation turnaround time (TAT). Secondary outcomes included overall study turnaround time from order processing to preliminary report time as well as ED length of stay. All ED patients undergoing plain radiography 6 months pre-intervention were compared to all ED patients undergoing plain radiography 6 months post-intervention after a 1 month washout period. RESULTS: Post intervention there was a statistically significant decrease in the mean transportation TAT (mean ± SD: 9.87 min ± 15.05 versus 22.89 min ± 22.05, respectively, p-value <0.0001). In addition, it was found that 71.6% of patients in the post-intervention had transportation TAT ≤ 10 min, as compared to 32.3% in the pre-intervention period, p-value <0.0001, with narrower interquartile ranges in the post-intervention period. Similarly, the "study processing to preliminary report time" and the length of stay were lower in the post-intervention as compared to the pre-intervention, (52.50 min ± 35.43 versus 54.04 min ± 34.72, p-value = 0.02 and 3.65 h ± 5.17 versus 4.57 h ± 10.43, p < 0.0001, respectively), in spite of an increase in the time it took to elease a preliminary report in the post-intervention period. CONCLUSION: Using Lean change management techniques can be effective in reducing transportation time to plain radiography in the Emergency Department as well as improving process reliability.

Causes of cancellations on the day of surgery at a Tertiary Teaching Hospital.

BACKGROUND: Cancellation of elective scheduled operations on the day of surgery leads to an inefficient use of operating room (OR) time and a waste of resources. It also causes inconvenience for patients and families. Moreover, day of surgery (DOS) cancellation creates logistic and financial burden associated with extended hospital stay and repetitions of pre-operative preparations as well as opportunity costs of lost time and missed income. The objective of this study is to establish the rate of elective surgical cases cancellations on the day of surgery and the reasons for these cancellations stratified by avoidable versus unavoidable within a tertiary care teaching hospital in Beirut, Lebanon as well as recommend appropriate solutions. METHOD: This is a prospective audit of the operation theatre list over a period of eight months (January 1, 2013-August 30, 2013). All patients scheduled to undergo elective surgeries at the hospital from January-August 2013 were included. An assigned OR staff recorded the cancelled cases in real time. The assigned staff confirmed the cancellation reason and added additional explanation if necessary by calling patients or through direct inquiry of clerical and/or clinical staff the following day. A Pareto chart was constructed to prioritize the reasons that accounted for 80 % of the avoidable surgical cancellations. RESULTS: For the given study period, 5929 elective surgeries were performed, of which 261 cases (4.4 %) were cancelled on the day of surgery. 187 cases (or 71.6 %) were judged as potentially avoidable cancellations versus 74 (28.4 %) that were judged as unavoidable. Of the 187 potentially avoidable cancellations, lack of financial clearance, incomplete medical evaluation, patient not showing up for surgery, and OR behind schedule accounted for almost 80 % of the causes. CONCLUSION: This study showed that the majority of cancellations were deemed avoidable and hospital related. A day of surgery cancellation rate less than 2 % is attainable. Determining the major avoidable contributors to DOS cancellations is an essential first step to developing appropriate interventions to improve operating theater efficiency. Recommended interventions were presented accordingly.

Improving Emergency Department Door to Doctor Time and Process Reliability: A Successful Implementation of Lean Methodology.

The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of using lean management methods on improving emergency department door to doctor times at a tertiary care hospital.We performed a before and after study at an academic urban emergency department with 49,000 annual visits after implementing a series of lean driven interventions over a 20 month period. The primary outcome was mean door to doctor time and the secondary outcome was length of stay of both admitted and discharged patients. A convenience sample from the preintervention phase (February 2012) was compared to another from the postintervention phase (mid-October to mid-November 2013). Individual control charts were used to assess process stability.Postintervention there was a statistically significant decrease in the mean door to doctor time measure (40.0 minutes ± 53.44 vs 25.3 minutes ± 15.93 P < 0.001). The postintervention process was more statistically in control with a drop in the upper control limits from 148.8 to 72.9 minutes. Length of stay of both admitted and discharged patients dropped from 2.6 to 2.0 hours and 9.0 to 5.5 hours, respectively. All other variables including emergency department visit daily volumes, hospital occupancy, and left without being seen rates were comparable.Using lean change management techniques can be effective in reducing door to doctor time in the Emergency Department and improving process reliability.

Improving hospital discharge time: a successful implementation of Six Sigma methodology.

Delays in discharging patients can impact hospital and emergency department (ED) throughput. The discharge process is complex and involves setting specific challenges that limit generalizability of solutions. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of using Six Sigma methods to improve the patient discharge process. This is a quantitative pre and post-intervention study. Three hundred and eighty-six bed tertiary care hospital. A series of Six Sigma driven interventions over a 10-month period. The primary outcome was discharge time (time from discharge order to patient leaving the room). Secondary outcome measures included percent of patients whose discharge order was written before noon, percent of patients leaving the room by noon, hospital length of stay (LOS), and LOS of admitted ED patients. Discharge time decreased by 22.7% from 2.2 hours during the preintervention period to 1.7 hours post-intervention (P < 0.001). A greater proportion of patients left their room before noon in the postintervention period (P < 0.001), though there was no statistical difference in before noon discharge. Hospital LOS dropped from 3.4 to 3.1 days postintervention (P < 0.001). ED mean LOS of patients admitted to the hospital was significantly lower in the postintervention period (6.9 ±â€Š7.8 vs 5.9 ±â€Š7.7 hours; P < 0.001). Six Sigma methodology can be an effective change management tool to improve discharge time. The focus of institutions aspiring to tackle delays in the discharge process should be on adopting the core principles of Six Sigma rather than specific interventions that may be institution-specific.