Improving Efficiency in Patient Throughput in the Health Department Setting: A Quality Improvement Initiative

Abstract

Background: This project focused on a health district comprised of 12 county health departments in the southeastern region of the United States. At the time of this project, this district was currently working on its accreditation process to become a nationally certified and recognized body for the quality of care provided in the communities served, by the Public Health Accreditation Board. Quality improvement projects are important within public health and ongoing evaluation is necessary to improve processes. Methods: A time study with a pre and post-implementation of a streamlined electronic consent form was conducted, as well as a survey distributed to staff members pre and post-implementation to determine demographics, staff attitudes, knowledge, and perceptions. Results: Results from this quality improvement project demonstrated a reduction in time at one participating county to complete general consents with the customer service representatives by 91 seconds from pre to post. Respondents in the pre-implementation staff survey (n=31) tallied that 0.00% strongly agreed that patient intake process times are adequate while 54.84% disagreed that patient intake process times are adequate. In post-implementation of the same statement, respondents (n=16) tallied that 31.25% strongly agreed or agreed that patient intake process times were adequate. Conclusions: The project provided valuable data within the three participating counties. Effective methods to increase throughput, decrease waiting times, and improve overall staff and patient satisfaction within the departments is instrumental to success.