Reengineering the discharge process in the Coronary Care Unit -

Abstract

Emergency department (ED) boarding is a problem faced by many medical centers around the world. One of the main causes of ED boarding is hospital occupancy, which is determined by the balance between the hospital inpatient admission and discharge rates. One of the most important strategies for optimizing hospital occupancy and therefore reducing ED boarding is early inpatient discharge.Based on a graduate course group project, it was revealed that the discharge process at the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) is flawed, whereby patients would have to wait for five hours to complete their discharge process. The aim of this project is to map the discharge process in CCU and introduce changes through a re-engineered discharge process which includes a discharge checklist.