Date of Conferral
6-11-2025
Degree
Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.)
School
Business Administration
Advisor
Jorge Gaytan
Abstract
A lack of effective psychiatric discharge process strategies affects the service quality, throughput efficiency, and revenue of emergency departments (EDs). Consequently, ED discharge coordinators are concerned about the significant financial losses from these deficiencies. The purpose of this multiple qualitative descriptive case study was to explore discharge strategies ED discharge coordinators used to improve service quality and throughput of psychiatric-boarded patients in ERs by reducing the number of psychiatric-boarded patients' length of stay (LOS). The Donabedian model grounded this study. The participants were three ED discharge coordinators in the United States who successfully implemented such strategies. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and company documents. Thematic analysis yielded four key themes: (a) implementing dedicated spaces for psychiatric patients, (b) integrating specialized mental health professionals into the emergency department, (c) implementing centralized psychiatric referral management, and (d) using an efficient medical clearance process. A key recommendation is for ED discharge coordinators to implement integrated care models that emphasize medical and psychiatric evaluations for patients with mental health challenges. The implications for positive social change include the potential ED leaders to develop efficient discharge process strategies that reduce the LOS of psychiatric patients boarded in EDs while also improving service quality for this vulnerable patient population.
Recommended Citation
Caldwell, Dr. Charille, "Psychiatric Boarding Discharge Strategies That Improve Service Quality and Throughput in Emergency Departments" (2025). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 17966.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/17966
