Santa Monica Emergency Department Achieves High Patient-satisfaction Scores

Teamwork and communication achieve a 19-minute decrease in registration time, an 18-minute decrease in triage time, and patient satisfaction scores in the 80th percentile at the Nethercutt Emergency Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital.

"Working quickly is the nature of the Emergency Department, but being able to maintain and sustain quality care and patient satisfaction on a daily basis is really hard work. It's been so rewarding to see how proud staff members are to be part of our success, and how happy our patients are," notes Elizabeth George, unit director of the SMUCLA Emergency Department (ED).

Elizabeth initially created the ED Processes and Quality Improvement Committee as a "front-end process-improvement system" to review processes and develop plans to increase efficiency and effectiveness in processing patients during registration and triage, and to improve patientsatisfaction scores. She held weekly meetings with ED Medical Director Dr. Wally Ghurabi, nurses, doctors and staff from Environmental Services, Admissions and Security to discuss specific ways to accomplish these goals.

A fast-track service, called fastER, for patients with minor illnesses or conditions was introduced as a "back-end improvement plan." It has decreased turn-around time to an average of 80 minutes from arrival to departure for patients who qualify. Also, by registering patients during evaluation at the triage station (instead of at Admissions), triage time decreased from 23 minutes to five minutes.

A communication campaign, consisting of role-playing, weekly meetings, C-I-Care training videos and posters around the department reminded staff members of the importance of communication in their daily operations. This resulted in a meteoric rise in patient-satisfaction scores from the 15th to the 80th percentile.

Plans for further improving back-end systems are now underway to decrease wait times for laboratory and radiology results.

To view C-I-Care staff training videos, visit http://hr.healthcare.ucla.edu/patientexp/