The Clinical Patient Workflow Optimization

By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on The Clinical Patient Workflow Optimization

Average length of stay (ALOS) is a critical metric that measures the average time a patient spends in the hospital from admission to discharge. Regional One Health initiated the Clinical Patient Workflow Optimization (CPWO) program to reduce patients’ ALOS while maintaining high-quality care, improving operational workflows, minimizing hospital-acquired infections, and optimizing resource allocation. 

CPWO activities include daily multidisciplinary huddles, virtual rounding, daily utilization reviews, monthly tactical reviews, and systematic data collection and analysis. These interventions create opportunities for better communication with patients and families and real-time identification of barriers. The program standardizes care protocols, identifies workflow gaps, and improves staff communication.  

This enhanced collaboration among physicians, nurses, rehabilitation specialists, social workers, case managers, and ancillary teams ensures coordinated efforts in patient care planning and discharge execution. The program has fostered a continuous improvement culture, incorporating team members’ insights and tracking data metrics. To measure program success, Regional One Health tracked patient length of stay, patient discharge disposition, hospital readmission rates, case mix index, time from observation to expected discharge, bed turnover data, and harm events throughout the hospital. The health system collected patient data from electronic health records and a patient flow monitoring system, and digital dashboards streamlined data collection and analysis. Patient surveys provided integral qualitative feedback on patient experiences.  

Between 2022 and 2024, Regional One Health reported a 42 percent reduction in harm events and an 80 percent decrease in the emergency department’s hours spent on diversion. In addition to that, noticed an improvement in patient experience scores by 15%. As a result of reducing ALOS by 0.85 days, the health system achieved an increased net revenue of more than $18 million. Since the health system integrated the program, hospital-acquired infections have decreased by 55 percent.