July 2023
Radiology & CT Scan Department
Radiology
Ascension Saint Francis Hospital
Evanston
,
IL
United States
Radiology and CT Departments
The Radiology/CT team quickly rose to the occasion and changed the priority of radiology orders to stat, which created automatic prioritization in workflow.
Overcrowding causes delays in patient care, raises costs and creates flow challenges across the house. To address how to improve excess patient days, multidisciplinary teams came together to create a hospital-wide approach to identify bottlenecks and constraints of patient flow from the ED to inpatient to next level of care. The development of task forces was created with one concentrating on the ED. The ED taskforce identified Radiology/CT scan turnaround time as a key priority. This team established time goals to track and trend their performance. Through collaboration with several interprofessional associates such as physicians, clinical nurses, case management, etc. Radiology/CT set a goal to decrease the time from the patients order for XR/CT to getting the test completed. The Radiology/CT team quickly rose to the occasion and changed the priority of radiology orders to stat, which created automatic prioritization in workflow. Over the last few months, the Radiology/CT team has been able to decrease the time from order to testing by the following;
* CT 97 minutes to 88 minutes
* Imaging 57 minutes to 42 minutes
Because of their steadfast dedication to providing the best care, this substantial decrease in time has allowed for patients to have results come sooner and the patient to be dispositioned quicker for discharge or admission.