Hospitals cut OT costs and beds through efficiency program
Friday, October 25, 2013
BY BARBARA WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
A program designed to help hospitals get their patients from emergency rooms to hospital beds or back home more efficiently has helped two local medical centers reduce overtime costs and beds.
Just five weeks after finishing a Patient Flow program, The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood has lowered its surgical staff overtime to “almost zero,” said a hospital administrator.
At St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center, administrators were able to reduce the number of telemetry beds, where heart patients are monitored, from 75 to 60 after putting in place a testing system in the emergency room, said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, chairman of emergency medicine.
The hospitals were two of 14 that participated in a collaborative effort by the New Jersey Hospital Association and the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Organization to reduce costs and streamline work flow in operating rooms and emergency departments. It’s the first program nationwide to involve multiple hospitals, said Dr. Eugene Litvak, the institute’s president and CEO.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/229208781_Hospitals_cut_OT_costs_and_beds_through_efficiency_program.html#sthash.DvYEo9K7.dpuf
Sounds good to me… but, the pumpkins still don’t.