Psychiatric Hospital Streamlines Patient Transfer Process to Outpatient Clinics, Reducing Scheduling Time and Time to First Appointment and Nearly Doubling Monthly Transfers

Psychiatric Hospital Streamlines Patient Transfer Process to Outpatient Clinics, Reducing Scheduling Time and Time to First Appointment and Nearly Doubling Monthly Transfers

Snapshot
Summary
Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics used Toyota Production System principles to streamline the process by which patients are transferred to outpatient clinics. Key improvements included obtaining advanced insurance authorization, enhancing patient involvement, standardizing and simplifying referral request and appointment scheduling processes, and using automated systems to track referrals and scheduling and to measure performance, thus enabling the rapid identification of sources of error and delay. The program significantly reduced scheduling time, time to the patient's first appointment, and communication errors, leading to a near doubling in the number of patient transfers completed each month.

Evidence Rating
Moderate: The evidence is based on pre- and post-implementation comparisons of the amount of time needed to schedule appointments, time to the first appointment, and number of monthly transfers, along with post-implementation trend data on communication errors.

Developing Organizations
Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics

Date First Implemented
2006

Patient Population
Vulnerable Populations > Mentally ill


abrir aquí para acceder al documento AHRQ completo:
AHRQ Innovations Exchange | Psychiatric Hospital Streamlines Patient Transfer Process to Outpatient Clinics, Reducing Scheduling Time and Time to First Appointment and Nearly Doubling Monthly Transfers