Abstract

There is a national movement to create improvements in patient safety and outcomes due to evolutionary changes in the healthcare. Many health care organizations are using the framework of a culture of safety in order to create a reliable and stable work environment that emphasizes safety and improves patient outcomes. Patient throughput, defined as the active management of the supply of patient beds (rooms for occupation) to the demand of patients to beds and the length of time it takes for this action to occur, has been identified as one of the areas in need of improvement. This study considered if the use of an interdisciplinary team to execute patient rounds improves patient throughput, helping to expedite the patient discharge process while decreasing needless readmissions to the health care organization. A quantitative longitudinal retrospective data analysis of time stamps obtained from the electronic health record was examined to determine what impact interdisciplinary rounds had on patient throughput. It was determined that a discrepancy existed between the actual planning of a patient's discharge and the execution of the discharge, which contributed to unwanted readmissions to the health care organization. A secondary factor affecting the readmission rate was excluding the patient as a member of the interdisciplinary team. The social significance of the research is how health care organizations engage patients, empowering patients to actively participate in their own care including them in the decision-making process that affects patient care and improves outcomes.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3732875; ProQuest document ID: 1731254038. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Laurie Lee Dawn Dillon, DNP, RN

Sigma Membership

Phi Nu

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Quality Improvement

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Safety Culture, Patient Throughput, Interdisciplinary Cooperation

Advisor

Allison Terry

Degree

DNP

Degree Grantor

Walden University

Degree Year

2015

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2021-04-02

Full Text of Presentation

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