Best practices in Discharge Process

[Process Engineer]

Hi there!

I working as a process improvement engineer with the ortho and pacu nurses. Sorry no strong clinical background. I a reaching to you for your expertise....I am looking for ideas, best practices, what works, what doesn't from a discharge process perspective. Our facility has a joint center with group PT. The issues is that after pt go to PT, there are several of them (a batch!) that might be ready to be discharged. Several of these pts might belong to the same RN (6:1 ratio). As a result, while she discharges the 1st pt, the 2nd and 3rd are waiting. Once she is done with the 1st pt, she discharges the 2nd, while the 3rd keeps waiting. In the mean time, there are several patients waiting in pacu for a bed for 2 or 3 hours.

How do you get around this batching of patients (created by the grouped pt) that need to be DC'd?

How can we decrease the pacu waiting time?

Any experience employing a dedicated discharge rn?

Many thanks in advance.

[Turd Ferguson]

Any experience employing a dedicated discharge rn?

My floor has had such a position before. Discharge/float RN, also helps with admissions. Really took some of the excess burden off the floor nurses and expedited the d/c process, which in turn sped up the admission process. Sadly, like many other things, the $$ just isn't there and that position no longer exists.