The purpose of ths paper is to report that timely interventions to facilitate medical patient flow and reduce medical outliers may be associated with a reduction in hospital mortality.
Interventions to improve the flow of medical patients were used to unblock and facilitate the discharge process allowing a reduction in medical outliers. SPC run charts of mortality were used to quality control the changes.
Timeliness in daily senior medical review and discharge planning, a level 1 medical ward, and outreach including ALERT training and early warning scoring allowed a rationalisation in medical beds and a reduction in mortality for emergency medical admissions, reflected in a lower hospital standarised mortality rate (HSMR).
Interventions to improve flow can also lead to a reduction in mortality.
This paper emphasises how quantitative flow improvements can also generate qualitative improvements.
