From 'front door' to 'hub of the enterprise'

Tomorrow's accountable payment models, along with the increased ED volumes expected to accompany expanded health care coverage, will require providers to deliver efficient, cost-effective care while improving transitions across care settings.

Rather than reactively responding to these pressures, hospital executives must recognize—and capitalize on—the ED’s potential to sway performance in key areas of interest. We must recast the ED’s role from the “front door” to the “hub of an integrated enterprise.”

Actively manage capacity constraints

This transformation starts with positioning the ED to manage near-term volume pressure by moving beyond traditional efficiency tactics to focus on back-end processes that demand collaboration with hospital leadership and inpatient counterparts.

The first half of the study explores here-and-now opportunities to develop a proactive stance on capacity management, both within the ED and by decompressing the ED with observation patient management.

ED poised to boost value system-wide

The second half lays the groundwork for succeeding in tomorrow’s accountable care world—where EDs will bridge patients to the most appropriate care setting by optimizing transitions and communication between the ED and ambulatory providers.

Ultimately, value generation will be a powerful and pivotal strategy for hospitals, and EDs are uniquely positioned to drive this by:

• Providing more efficient care
• Improving care quality
• Enhancing the patient experience
• Ensuring appropriate resource utilization

By reading this study, members will learn to:

• Foster collaborative throughput to manage capacity constraints
• Strategize observation patient management
• Hardwire continuity of care and improve communication with ambulatory providers
• Optimize vulnerable high-utilizer patient management