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To improve the overall patient experience, including reducing wait times and improving flow, the Department of Emergency Medicine is beginning a renovation project that will continue throughout 2010.
“Our Emergency Department provides a critical service for our community, which spans locally and regionally, as well as serving as a key point of access for the institution,” said Richard Zane, MD, vice chair of Emergency Medicine. “We are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, day or night ready to care for anyone who needs care. After a detailed and extensive process that included input from staff across the institution at all levels from hospital leadership to the front line, we are re-engineering the entire process by which patients are cared for in our ED to ensure patients continue to receive and have access to the highest quality care in a timely fashion.”
The work will occur in phases. The first phase, which is nearing completion, saw new areas for ED staging and storage and the relocation of the OB inpatient check-in area to a new location nearer the main entry.
Phase two starts next week with work that will be more visible in the atrium lobby and ED. Upcoming changes include a new lounge seating area in the open atrium and closure of the existing lounge area. Also, there will be a new but temporary ED patient waiting area and closure of a portion of the existing ED waiting area and triage area. ED staff areas and offices will be relocated temporarily, as well.
Most of the renovations will be within the ED’s existing footprint, and the project aims to make the ED more patient-centered. Although the ED won’t gain a significant amount of square footage, the process redesign eliminates parallel processing, leading to a more streamlined and efficient care model. During this next phase, patients will begin to see changes in front-end processes including rapid check-in and assessment, bedside registration and reduced “door-to-doc” time.
BWH’s Emergency Department is the front door for key patient populations and the point of entry for many patients who require specialty care. Last year alone, the ED received more than 57,000 patient visits, approximately 30 percent of whom require hospital admission. Only 15 percent of patient visits were classified as low acuity.