When someone comes through the doors of Vancouver General Hospital’s emergency room, they want to be seen quickly, treated quickly and go home quickly. For staff at VGH, their primary concern is to do that in a way that ensures patient safety and the best quality care possible.

To achieve this, our ER staff continuously implement efficiency measures throughout their operations. How? By carefully analyzing each step of the admissions and treatment process. For instance, they recently improved their admitting procedures by adding two new assessment areas for patients with a lower severity of symptoms. This means that staff can see, diagnose and discharge patients even more quickly. Other recent initiatives include an improvement in stroke care, in which staff have reduced the amount of time it takes to get a CT scan.

“We’re using lean methodology to help us examine and implement new ideas to make the system not only more efficient but, in the process, better, safer and less costly,” says Lannon de Best, Patient Services Manager, Emergency Department. “When we save 15 minutes per patient, and multiply that by 240 patients per day, that’s a lot of time saved. We can reinvest that time into delivering even better quality care.”

The end result? Improved patient treatment and admissions, so that patients receive safe, quality care in a timely manner, and the emergency department is as efficient as possible.

Learn more about what’s happening at VGH.

Help advance patient care.