Enhancing patient flow through standardised discharge pathways for neurology and medicine services.

Background and objectives: Poor discharge planning impairs hospital throughput, adds to the financial strain on health systems and diminishes patient and provider satisfaction. We developed consensus-based discharge criteria coupled with a standardised discharge pathway for four presenting diagnoses and tracked their effect on discharge timing and length of stay (LOS).

Methods: Medical readiness for discharge criteria for patients diagnosed with transient ischaemic attack, seizure, demyelinating disease or syncope were generated by expert consensus at our institution. A standardised discharge pathway was developed for eligible patients based on discussions with stakeholders and staff. Discharge timing and readmissions were tracked for 6 months pre-intervention and 12 months post-intervention (divided into 6 months of implementation and post-implementation periods). The primary outcome was a discharge time of ≤2 hours for 60% of patients during the implementation period. Secondary outcomes included reduced time to discharge (TTD) and LOS compared with the pre-intervention period.

Results: 318 total patient visits were included across the baseline, implementation and post-implementation periods. Median TTD improved from 171 min at baseline to 88 and 92 min, respectively, during the implementation and post-implementation periods. Median LOS similarly decreased from 94 hours to 35 and 30 hours, respectively. All primary and secondary outcomes were achieved during the implementation period and sustained post-implementation. The rate of emergency department visits and hospital readmissions within 30 days remained low (~1.5%) post-intervention. Additionally, most providers reported that the intervention improved clinical workflow.

Conclusions: This standardised discharge framework improved discharge efficiency for patients with four common diagnoses during an 18-month quality improvement study. The framework and its implementation are highly scalable, and similar systems-level approaches should be considered by hospitals to improve throughput.