Continuous Improvement: RUHS Tests New Dispatch System for patient transport

UPDATE: CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

Welcome to the first of our Continuous Improvement stories for the Team RUHS blog. The Continuous Improvement Team helps facilitate systemic changes to ensure the utmost value for staff, the community and patients.  

These recurring stories submitted by the team will highlight ongoing, staff-led projects to develop consistent, incremental improvements that remove waste and enhance processes and services to achieve greater efficiency and quality.  

A multidisciplinary team of RUHS employees working as part of a Continuous Improvement effort has upgraded how patients and equipment are transported within the hospital with a new system that is expected to better distribute workloads, expedite transfer to diagnostic procedures and increase patient satisfaction. Under the new system, which began its rollout earlier this week, a staff member acting as a dispatcher will receive transportation requests for patients and equipment.  

Medical unit clerks (MUCs) and registered nurses will communicate with the dispatcher directly via a secure chat. The dispatcher will then contact the couriers and coordinate their schedules.  

The new system was devised during a Rapid Improvement Event (RIE) after it was found that transportation within the medical center had been decentralized, with MUCs and RNs having to get in touch with couriers directly and the couriers sometimes operating independently of one another. The result was delayed diagnostic procedures and care, with patients waiting in hallways for transportation. 

The team found that nurses and certified nursing assistants were spending a lot of time searching for items such as gurneys and wheelchairs. Under the new system, the dispatcher will make sure those items are sent with the courier.  

As a result, patient comfort is expected to increase, as patients will be able to stay in their rooms longer until their assigned courier can get to them. There will be less waiting in hallways as details are worked out.  

The creation of the centralized transportation system is one of multiple improvements that have been made at the Medical Center by employees thus far using RIE events. During the RIE, employees utilize a scientific approach to first identify problems, then solve them.  

Keep an eye on the Team RUHS blog as the Continuous Improvement Team provides updates on other system enhancements.