Patient Progression: The missing key to achieving your patient flow goals

Is Patient Progression Management MIA in Your Patient Flow Strategy?

By Bob Gleason-Moore, RN, MN

Originally published March 27, 2019

Everyone was banking on it…   We were going to move the needle on length of stay.  We would finally meet the goal corporate had set for our hospital. We had changed our processes.  We had tools in place.  We were ready! Soon, we found we could move patients around like we never had before.  We felt efficient.  We were good at it. So, what about our length of stay? It barely budged!

Sure, there were improvements, but we expected more for all our efforts.  We didn’t meet our own goals, much less those of corporate. Does this story sound familiar to you?  It does to a lot of my peers I talk to.  Even a well-executed patient flow initiative may not yield the results you’d hoped for. 

Why?

Is Patient Progression Missing in Patient Flow Initiatives?

The New England Journal of Medicine defines “patient flow” as “the movement of patients through a healthcare facility.”

From EHRs to bed management systems to operational command centers to consultants, hospitals use a variety of tools to optimize patient flow.

The challenge is that patient flow tools and initiatives often focus on the entire patient population. With this high-level, general view of flow, we end up losing focus on the progression of the individual patient. Opportunities to maximize patient throughput and flow are left on the table.

How do we prevent this?

That’s where an effective patient progression program can help.

Patient Progression is the advancement of the hospitalized patient through the required care events, actions, and processes to achieve a health status where the patient can be safely and appropriately transitioned to a lower level of care.  Patient progression is patient-centered and is directed by the physician order according to hospital policies and procedures.