Internal medicine physician Naval Parikh, MD, treats patients at SortinoMD in Florida, where he also serves as the principal investigator and clinical site coordinator at NAPA Research. Prior to these roles, Dr. Naval Parikh was responsible for such things as discussing patient discharge initiatives and analyzing length of stay as a member of both the Florida Medical Quality Alliance Initiative and Broward Health Medical Center’s Utilization Committee.
The average length of stay (ALOS) at hospitals is a common measurement of hospital efficiency. In the United States, most patients remain in the hospital for about five days, which is much better than some other developed countries, such as Japan, Finland, and Germany. Below are several things hospitals can do to improve their ALOS:
- Discharge patients sooner. Typically, hospitals operate 24/7, yet many of them have discharge models that call for morning or afternoon discharges. Instead of keeping patients unnecessarily, hospitals should discharge them as soon as it’s safe for them to return home. This means that patients are hospitalized for less time and space and personnel are liberated to handle new admissions each day.
- Improve asset management. At every point, a hospital should run like a well-oiled machine. When this happens, ALOS naturally improves since everyone staffed at the hospital is operating at peak efficiency. To accomplish this, hospital leaders must be certain that equipment is always easily accessible or obtainable by staff and that equipment distribution is optimized.
- Communicate with everyone. Poor communication plays a large role in keeping ALOS numbers high. The reason this occurs is because teams cannot function smoothly if their members are not talking to one another easily. Further, information about patient progress and current statuses cannot be shared among staff members as easily, nor can patients be taught about their own role when it comes to achieving optimal health again.
