Participants in five previous rapid improvement events recently reported on the state of their improvement areas. All of the areas — patient registration, blood draw labs, Brawerman 2B surgical clinic, Brawerman 3B medical oncology clinic and a new patient’s initial phone call experience — demonstrated progress.

“I am proud of how we are all stepping up together to identify issues affecting our quality of patient care and finding effective ways to address them,” said Alexandra Levine, M.D., chief medical officer. “We are the answer, everyone working together for the benefit of our patients, our colleagues and ourselves.”

Achievements continue:

• Additional signs and floor decals in the patient registration area were installed to improve traffic flow, and patient satisfaction scores continue to rise from 85.6 points in December 2009 to 87.8 points in January.
• Two months after the improvement event in the blood draw area, the average number of patients waiting for service remains no more than nine, compared to 24 patients at the beginning of the event.
• Both the 2B surgical and 3B medical oncology clinics are seeing decreased patient wait times and increased satisfaction scores from both patients and physicians.
• Improvements in the process of scheduling new patient appointments enabled the Department of Surgery to see 59 more patients in January than in December 2009.