Essential components for implementing care coordination and discharge procedures

Ashley Daly, Sherry McCool, Bethany Bolt and Jodie Winfrey
Additional contact information
Ashley Daly: Children’s Mercy Hospital, USA
Sherry McCool: Children’s Mercy Hospital, USA
Bethany Bolt: Children’s Mercy Hospital, USA
Jodie Winfrey: Children’s Mercy Hospital, USA

Management in Healthcare: A Peer-Reviewed Journal, 2025, vol. 9, issue 3, 237-246

Abstract: Children’s Mercy Hospital (CMH), a 390-bed free-standing paediatric hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, implemented a formalised patient progression programme in 2022 to enhance patient throughput from pre-arrival to discharge. Utilising Lean process improvement methodologies, CMH identified 88 projects aimed at improving patient progression. In May 2023, CMH opened a patient progression hub, centralising key teams and integrating advanced technology to monitor and manage patient flow. A significant emphasis was placed on discharge and care coordination, with the mission of ensuring safe and timely discharges. Important initiatives included hiring a discharge expediter (DE) to address discharge barriers and implementing projected discharge date (PDD) and clinical readiness date (CRD) to improve discharge transparency and preparation. The patient progression hub features technology from GE Healthcare, with 16 screens continuously displaying pertinent throughput information such as organisational capacity, emergency department (ED) capacity, planned and confirmed discharges, and patients needing transfer from the intensive care unit (ICU) to the medical/surgical units. This real-time data sharing has been crucial in coordinating care and expediting discharges to address system bottlenecks. Additionally, CMH introduced ‘lightning rounds’, which are quick multidisciplinary huddles to review discharge needs. Afternoon rounds were implemented to facilitate continuous communication between charge nurses and care managers. These efforts, supported by innovative technology, have led to substantial improvements in patient outcomes. Timely, well-coordinated discharges have reduced hospital stay durations, minimised readmission rates and enhanced overall patient satisfaction. The initiatives have also resulted in improved capacity management, allowing CMH to better serve its patient population and ensure high-quality, patient-centred care.

Keywords: paediatric hospital; patient progression; Lean process improvement; patient throughput; discharge coordination; patient progression hub (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hstalks.com/article/9051/download/ (application/pdf)
https://hstalks.com/article/9051/ (text/html)
Requires a paid subscription for full access.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:mih000:y:2025:v:9:i:3:p:237-246

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management in Healthcare: A Peer-Reviewed Journal from Henry Stewart Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Henry Stewart Talks ().