The nine-member emergency department rapid integration team partnered with all 21 EDs within the Sacramento-based Sutter Health System to identify and rapidly scale best practices that optimize ED throughput with a focus on process improvement and operational excellence. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, the group engaged site leadership, radiology, laboratory, registration, care management, nurses and technicians—bringing together all stakeholders impacting ED throughput—to develop an ED playbook of best practices.

Key achievements include launching the playbook, improving front-end processes, standardizing nursing protocols and ED handoffs and enhancing throughput strategies such as ambulance patient offload time reduction and lobby care redesign. The team advanced multidisciplinary collaboration, strengthened leadership engagement and expanded cross-functional partnerships. Technology enhancements included systemwide care insights, Epic optimizations and analytics dashboards. Facility and operational improvements added care capacity and access solutions. These efforts resulted in measurable gains, including a 2.8 percent reduction in length of stay and a 25 percent decrease in the left-without-being-seen rate.