REORGANIZING THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT TO REDUCE THROUGHPUT TIME BY INTRODUCING CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS

Paper in proceeding, 2008

This paper reports the results from a test implementation at a Swedish emergency department, aiming at decreasing patient throughput time and time-to-doctor. The main approach was to introduce a team-based organization in combination with some integration of process-steps. The quantitative evaluation of patient data shows significant reduction in mean values of up to about 50 minutes for some patient groups, combined with an increased portion of the doctors’ time together with the patients.