Benchmarking Hospital ED Wait Times

This working paper compares various data for Sentara Obici Hospital to that of two other hospitals namely, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, and Sentara Princess Anne. Although the main purpose of the working paper is to compare the waiting times for the emergency departments (EDs), the other variables such as surgical care, Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), and the care for pneumonia cases will be compared. Before the comparison is made, it is vital to have an overview of the three hospitals. Sentara Obici Hospital is located on Godwin Boulevard in Suffolk. It has a capacity of 172 beds and is a full-service hospital that provides residents of Western Tidewater with high-quality and patient-centered care. The hospital uses latest and advanced technologies such as the Sentara electronic medical record that gives healthcare workers immediate access to health information through a secure network. Electronic medical records help physicians to have a better relationship, improving the level of medical care for patients at Sentara Obici Hospital and across Sentara. 

Sentara Norfolk General Hospital is one of the five Level 1 trauma centers in Virginia, is the main operation center for the Nightingale Regional Air Ambulance, the first Magnet hospital in the region as well as one of the best hospitals that offer heart treatment programs. The hospital is located on the Eastern Virginia Medical Campus and has a capacity of 525 beds. It is also the main teaching institution for the Eastern Virginia Medical School. Lastly, the Sentara Princess Anne Hospital is an acute care hospital that has a capacity of 160 beds. It serves people of the Southern Virginia Beach, as well as communities around Chesapeake and northeastern North Carolina. Sentara Princess Anne Hospital prides on having attained the Magnet recognition, which is the highest honor for excellence in nursing in the nation. 

Looking at how Sentara Obici Hospital performs in surgical care, some patients still suffer from defects caused by bad or incorrect procedures. Of all the patients that seek hip or knee replacements, 2.8 percent get complications ( Hospital Compare, 2018) . The 2.8 percent represents the national result. However, the result for Sentara Obici Hospital is not different from the national rate. The other two hospitals also have a rate that is not different from the national result. According to the analysis of the HCAHPS, although the feedback given by the patients on different aspects varies, a majority of the patients say that they would recommend to other patients to seek the services of Sentara Obici Hospital. It means that the services provided are up to the accepted standards. Patients who were assessed in the other two hospitals also say that they would recommend that patients be treated in the respective hospitals although the rating of different services in the various hospitals varies. 

The national rate of readmission of pneumonia patients is 16.9 percent. The level of readmission cases of pneumonia in Sentara Obici Hospital as well as the other two hospitals is not different from the national rate. It would have been best if the figure fell significantly below the national rate. The crucial aspect in which the three hospitals differ remarkably is the emergency department wait times. The waiting time refers to the time it takes someone to receive medical attention when they are taken to the hospital. The national average waiting time is 49 minutes while the Virginia state waiting time is 39 minutes ( Hospital Compare, 2018) . However, the waiting time for emergency patients at the Sentara Obici Hospital is 50 minutes, a figure that is too high. The waiting time in Sentara Norfolk General Hospital is 41 minutes while it is only 34 minutes in Sentara Princess Anne. Therefore, patients wait for too long to get medical attention in Sentara Obici Hospital (see table in the appendix section). 

Benchmarking in the context of the healthcare industry is done to compare how different health aspects in different health centers rank. It is the basis upon which other hospitals are categorized as being the best and others fair (Aparicio et al., 2014). It is also best for various healthcare providers to know how they are performing in their quest to offer patients superior services. When poor performing healthcare providers improve their service delivery, the whole health industry improves. Benchmarking outcomes also guide the patients in the healthcare centers they ought to attend if they are in need of specific services. Through benchmarking, I have learned that hospitals vary in different aspects of healthcare provision. A hospital may perform best in one aspect and fail in another. Also, hospitals may have the same level of performance in many aspects but fail in one crucial aspect such as waiting time as is evident in the three hospitals. The disparity in the waiting times indicates that there are significant differences in the customer care departments of the three hospitals. The other likely speculation is that the number of healthcare workers in the three hospitals differ. Some hospitals have more healthcare workers than others. 

Improvement plan 

As seen in the benchmarking, Sentara Obici Hospital needs to improve in its emergency response. The first thing the management of the hospital needs to do is to reshuffle their staff members so that those who are in the customer care departments are transferred to other departments. Secondly, there is the need for the hospital to employ more healthcare workers so that some are assigned to deal with emergency cases. Lastly, the management needs to motivate their workers by rewarding those who give exemplary services. For example, best performers can be promoted or have their salary increased. 

References 

Aparicio, J., Borras, F., Ortiz, L., & Pastor, J. T. (2014). Benchmarking in healthcare: an approach based on closest targets. In  managing service productivity  (pp. 67-91). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. 

Hospital Compare . (2018).  Find and compare information about Hospitals. Medicare.gov . Retrieved 28 February 2018, from https://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html 

Appendix 

Comparison of healthcare among different hospitals