Achievement Awards Spotlight: Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital

July 26, 2024

HAP's annual Achievement Awards honor hospitals and health systems for their innovation, creativity, and commitment to patient care. The Achievement Awards showcase and share member hospitals’ and health systems’ successful programs and best practices.

This year, Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital received the Optimal Operations Award for its project to improve Left Without Being Seen rates in its hospital emergency department through a new multidisciplinary team approach.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The challenge:  Patients who leave the emergency department without being seen by a provider run the risk of adverse events.
• Taking action:  The hospital moved away from a traditional single-nurse, single-provider triage model to a multidisciplinary team triage model.
  • The new collaborative team includes two providers, two registered nurses, and one licensed practical nurse.
  • The facility repurposed a room for a rapid assessment area that is specifically designed to fast-track the initial screening and streamline the triage process.
• Results:  The organization cut its Left Without Being Seen rate by half and saw a significant reduction in the time between the patient arrival to the completion of medical screening exams.
• Key element:  It’s important to consider how your electronic health record will integrate with new processes and adapt your records system to new care models.
• Quotable:  “The ability to analyze data, review previously developed reports, while utilizing historical data and trends provided the necessary resources to ensure the new process was successful,” the team noted in its entry.

Congratulations to Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital for its outstanding efforts to advance patient care. Learn more about the project online.

Questions about the HAP Achievement Awards may be directed to HAP Member Services at (717) 561-5359.