Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital Emergency Department

The Woodlands, Texas

Improving throughput was a paramount goal in 2023 for Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital’s emergency department, where staff worked to enhance the efficiency of operations while maintaining the highest standards of patient care. They focused on reducing the length of stay for discharged patients in the 45-bed ED. The baseline was 280 minutes from arrival toED discharge for all patients discharged from the ED in 2022. The staff set an ambitious goal of trimming that time to 210 minutes by the year’s end, all the while ensuring the safety and quality of care remained uncompromised. The momentum gained during the summer competition and continued into the fall. By October 2023, the overall time from patient arrival to discharge had shrunk to 243 minutes, marking a substantial improvement from the baseline. Notably, nurse discharge times continued their downward trend, hitting 33 minutes by October 2023, a significant improvement from the 48- minute baseline observed in 2022.