Date of Conferral
2015
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
School
Nursing
Advisor
Allison Terry
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.
Recommended Citation
Dillon, Laurie Lee Dawn, "The Effect of a Culture of Safety on Patient Throughput" (2015). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 1643.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/1643
