Challenging Today for a Better Tomorrow

by P.D. Hinduja Hospital and MRC
0 1036 0.0/5

Mr. & Mrs. Goswami were in my office on a Monday morning, and as they narrated their experience in an emotional outburst, there was a strong message for the hospital.

“Our 2 year old son Arnav had high fever and diarrhoea for two days and on the third day, i.e. 10th March, he became drowsy and we rushed him the hospital to Dr. N. Shah. On his advice for immediate admission we rushed to the admission counter at 12 noon only to be informed “sorry, no beds available”. In utter despair we waited in the casualty, with a sick child in my lap who was started on an IV antibiotic drip. We were unprepared for a casualty stay and were drained taking care of our child and ourselves. At 10 pm a bed was given for Arnav! After a comfortable hospital stay, completing seven days of antibiotic course on 16th March, with improvement in Arnav’s condition, we eagerly awaited discharge. But in spite of enquiring, we were not given a fixed discharge date.  Finally on 18th March morning suddenly the doctor confirmed discharge at 11 am. We happily arranged for a car by 12 noon, giving an hour for the usual discharge formalities. However, the reality was far more complex!  We were waiting till 4 pm as the discharge summary wasn’t ready. We kept asking the nurses for updates, but were only told that ‘doctors are informed’. Then when the summary was ready, the medicines took another hour to be delivered. Finally, we were called for bill payment, only to realize half day bed charges were added to the bill! Discussions, arguments and finally intervention of customer care; a refund was worked out! We were exhausted. My baby restless. Even our relatives at home were worried because we were taking so long to come home! After nine long hours, we finally left the hospital, taking with us bad memories of the hospital despite the fact that the medical care was beyond par and our child had recovered well. Will we come back if needed…? I don’t know!”

We are a 66 year old multispecialty, tertiary care hospital with 400 beds. During 2016, we admitted more than 33,000 patients with over 1, 30,000 inpatient days.

Lessons Learned:

  • We have long waiting list for admissions
  • Process inefficiency is leading to underutilization of hospital resources and evident patient dissatisfaction
  • We need patient’s involvement in the care plan
  • In this case patient’s hospital stay could be easily reduced by 30-35hrs with a proper discharge planning, proactive approach, team effort and simpler processes

The hospital management reviewed the above mentioned and other similar cases to improve our performance.

We decided to undertake a project to reduce Average Length Of Stay (ALOS) of patients by 3.6% from 3.91 to 3.77. This was done by improving both core clinical and non-clinical processes like the admission and discharge processes. This in turn will improve bed availability and also ensure a happy and memorable patient experience.

Lessons Learned

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