Skier1999's Profile

In our publically funded tertiary care hospital, a portion of a Department’s academic funding is tied to meeting certain quality and patient safety metrics. This relatively small stipend has been a significant incentive for various Departments to achieve their quality and patient safety measures. As the other hospital Departments are aware if these metrics have been attained, peer pressure is also another strong incentive for various Departments to achieve their quality and patient safety measures.

Certainly as David suggested, surgeons should be motivated to alter their OR utilization if they understand that the various delays that they experience would be minimized. Extensive communication with the surgeons is necessary for them to understand the benefit of altering their OR utilization patterns. Surgeons may actually appreciate that they are being consulted to find solutions to this issue – and thereby less likely to move their practices to a competitor hospital who may not value surgeons’ opinions as much as your institution.

In our publically funded health care system, 4 separate hospitals merged under one administration. The new hospital rebranded – new uniform badges, scrubs as mentioned by igrigorov. To further integrate, the various clinical services were redistributed to the component sites / campuses of the new mega-hospital e.g. Thoracic Surgery was amalgamated at one site, the Trauma Centre at one site. Well over 10 years after the merger, the individual hospitals’ culture still remain somewhat.

In our publically funded health care system, elective surgery may be delayed until the patient’s health status is optimized. Certainly in this context, patients are very motivated / engaged to actively participate in improving their health.

In our publically funded health care system, our hospital sends Emergency Department patient flow statistics to the entire Senior Management Team 3 times as day, 7 days a week. Being aware of the demand for beds from patients admitted through the Emergency Department is a strong incentive for physician and administrative leads to focus on more timely discharges.

Thank you everyone for your very helpful comments! They are greatly appreciated.

In our publically funded health care system, we have had some success with efficient urgent care clinics diverting patients with nonurgent conditions from the Emergency Room. There is much faster access to care through the urgent care clinics than the Emergency Department. The urgent care clinics can also provide much more cost efficient health care for patients with low acuity conditions.