Ideas That Work: Making Room for More Patients

Practical pearls from your colleagues

Tampa Surgery Center serves a large volume of patients who receive laser eye treatments, including YAG capsulotomy, superior and inferior selective laser trabeculoplasty, laser peripheral iridotomy and vitreolysis.

Because these procedures generally take only around five minutes to complete, the center schedules patients in blocks of four during every 10 minutes and sometimes sees upwards of 50 patients per day. However, the busy setup occasionally results in wait times ballooning to more than two hours. This in turn led to an overcrowded waiting room with overflow that led to some patients standing in a hallway.

The center came up with a creative fix. “To streamline this process, we cleared the stretchers out from our pre-op and PACU department and brought in additional ‘holding’ chairs,” says Clinical Administrator Melanie Pogoda, RN. “Patients are registered, brought to pre-op and then held by number in a chair located adjacent to the laser room until it is their turn.”

This simple tweak made the waiting room less crowded while improving the throughput process, with wait times decreasing significantly following the change to approximately 60 minutes, says Ms. Pogoda. OSM