Emergency Department Performance Scorecard - Free Report Sample

Introduction

The performance data will consider a patient population in the emergency department of the hospital. The population represents neonatal to geriatric patients pending their primary complaint and criteria of discharge. The patients presented to the emergency department could be due to medical history or any main claim; thus, every patient presenting would be included in the performance data.

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Outcome Measures

Performance

The outcome in performance measured in the scorecard is a reduced stay duration for patients that have been discharged. The patients' satisfaction is enhanced when they are discharged from the emergency room within a reliable duration of time; hence improving the scores of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Provider System. Procedure of implementing and increasing track space will require a decrease in discharged patients' stay duration to approximately less than 180 minutes. The current period of stay in the emergency room stands at 280 minutes. With the decrease in stay duration, room turnover increases, allowing space for patients in the waiting room, consequently increasing reimbursement volume and revenue.

Quality

The outcome of quality addressed in the scorecard is reduced use of catheters that bring about UTIs (urinary tract infections). This quality measure's primary aim is to reduce complications in patients and decrease their duration of stay as admitted patients in the hospital. Therefore, equipping the nurses with relevant knowledge and education is fundamental for this quality goal and availing appropriate and efficient facilities to satisfy the patients' needs. Additionally, hospital management must provide alternative patient care. Lowering the stay duration of admitted patients will result in an increased reimbursement rate, eventually improving the leapfrog scores.

Patient Safety

The measure of patient safety outcome is to improve bar code medication administration (BCMA). The principal objective of BCMA is to boost the effectiveness of care provided by our nurses by minimizing medication and dosage errors. When medication errors are reduced, patient satisfaction, increases, and reimbursement rates, this places the hospital at a very high potential of receiving substantial leapfrog scores.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is crucial for the success of every department. The primary outcome to focus on for this goal is to reduce nurse turnover in the emergency room. The engagement of nurses enhances proper teamwork and cooperation, thus decreasing the rate of their turnovers. Taking time to recognize employees for their hard work and little achievements encourages them to collaborate effectively. It is also crucial to allow the nurses to provide feedback and involve them in procedural decision-making processes. Unengaged employees fail to meet their expected performance standards. Improving employee engagement and reducing nurses' turnover will be achieved by assigning well-experienced nurses to a department with a safe environment, establishing trust, and encouraging significant degrees of care. A high turnover rate will require leaders to spend much time and resources hiring experienced staff and administering appropriate training hence increasing administrational costs.

Necessary Processes

Performance

To improve performance in the emergency rooms, it is vital to reduce the stay duration between patients' discharge registration and the actual time of discharge. It is not an accessible initiative to focus unless effective processes are applied to drive the outcomes. This could be achieved by implementing a faster room turnover to leave other patients' space in the waiting rooms. Minimizing stay duration will consequently realize better patient satisfaction as the HCAHPS scores will show. Further, this will be implemented by transferring patients already registered for discharge to a separate space to discharge them in less than 120 minutes. The success of this implementation will, additionally, require relevant training, facilities, and resources.

Quality

The quality outcome is fundamental in the emergency department, and for our case, our measure is to minimize the usage of catheters related to UTIs. Reduction of these catheters will lower rates of complications and infections in patients, eventually decreasing stay duration for admitted patients in hospitals, thus improving reimbursements and leapfrog scores. One relevant process to drive these outcomes is to provide required and reliable education and training to nurses to understand the sterile administration of foley catheter. Therefore, this will reduce the risks of infections and complications in patients.

Patient Safety

Nurses are vulnerable to medication and dosage prescription errors that are sometimes related to the pharmacy electronic medication record keeping. It is crucial to identify the source of such errors. Therefore, to achieve a better patient safety outcome and satisfaction, there will be a need to collaborate with the pharmacy in ensuring all errors are eliminated from the system. Employing new and efficient electronic devices for this procedure will be an additional beneficial procedure. Also, there will be a need for proper training of nurses and pharmacy executives to properly use the computers and scanners to completely discourage any medication errors.

Employee Engagement

Better employee engagement results in low nurse turnovers in emergency rooms. A reliable human resources management is crucial for minimizing any form of workforce disruption. Nurse turnover could be in the way of reducing working hours, change of department, or moving to another organization. The most significant turnover in our hospital is when nurses transfer to other organizations for greener pastures or quit due to cultural or operational clashes with the emergency department. To achieve minimal turnover, there will be a need to demonstrate exit interviews for any leaving staff to acquire feedback on what needs to be adjusted. The human resource management leaders will need to often organize meetings with the team and provide them a platform for any procedural decision-making activities. Also, recognizing the staff for their hard work through rewarding systems will encourage them to enhance their performance, thus reducing turnovers.

Additional Indicator

Patient Service

The primary outcome measured in the performance service is the rate of responding to patients' needs. The fundamental objective is to ensure total satisfaction of patients' thus increasing reimbursement and revenue. The HCAHPS and leapfrog scores will also be improved as a result. This goal can be driven by proper patient service training to nurses in the emergency room and the appropriate allocation of tasks among the department staff.

Advantages of Performance Data

Performance data scorecards enable leaders to incur standardized strategizing of their objectives and aim at a company's vision. Data scorecards are essential in aligning critical performance techniques with the strategic goal to improve the performance of the entire organization. Scorecards develop the leaders' outcome in a company while establishing desired traits that link customers' priorities with the company's goal. Data scorecards and quality departments work together to ensure enhanced quality of care in an organization. Among the advantages of employing data, scorecards help communicate the exact rifts that ought to be occupied (Lupi et al., 2011). While using data scorecards, leaders are allowed to perform their best while concentrating on balancing the operation and measures in their organizations. Scorecards are beneficial to leaders as they facilitate process change while enabling leadership to determine their general activities within the departments in an organization.

Current Trends

Healthcare companies are being faced with stiff competition because of the many challenges associated with patient care finances. In current society, many healthcare field advancements have resulted in strict regulations concerning the quality of care in healthcare facilities.

Healthcare companies are dependent on monetary motivation to attract employees to their organizations. In the recent past, a nurse was assured of a decent salary, resulting from the hours that nurses work while delivering quality healthcare. However, most nurses tend to find a second job that boosts their income form the nursing profession. Sign-on bonuses for the position in healthcare that are hard to recruit are vital in attracting nurses to organizations. Additionally, relocation reimbursement is also imperative in attracting nurses to an organization. All of the measures discussed above focus on driving new nurses to an organization; however, healthcare organizations also need to retain good employees. Tuition compensation and student loan repayments are benefits that employees enjoy as an added advantage, allowing for continued development.

Additionally, the leaders of the staff also need to have an understanding of the different teams. This allows the leaders to develop an effective way of supporting growth among the staff and monitoring the staff's progress, which promotes a culture of engagement in an organization. Furthermore, Education compensation outside tuition compensation is also essential as it allows nurses to study more about healthcare.

Conclusion

In conclusion, withholding a culture that promotes teamwork is also essential in ensuring that nurses stay engaged with their employers. Collaboration allows all team members to feel engaged and valued. Cooperation has proven necessary in healthcare. For instance, among the new activities being employed in organizations is establishing shared governance, which is led by two nurses. Such participation helps in retaining staff in an organization, which improves productivity and patient outcomes.