Managing Organizational LOS for Hospital Operational Efficiency

How does your hospital manage organizational Length of Stay or LOS?

This was the topic of conversation for the 3rd session of our webinar series entitled: “7 Ways to Master Operational Efficiencies in Your Hospital” hosted by Maria Romano, Clinical Product Consultant at TeleTracking.

By definition, Length of Stay is a metric used to measure the duration of a single episode of hospitalization for a patient. Inpatient days are calculated using this simple formula:

Day of Admission – Day of Discharge = LOS

Romano mentioned another popular statistic associated with Length of Stay defined as Average Length of Stay (ALOS). This number is achieved by using the following formula:

Sum of inpatient days/# of patient admissions with the same DRG classification = ALOS

So why is Length of Stay such an important number for hospitals to measure? It’s a reimbursement metric and one due to stiffen!

This single metric saved our client, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, $1.1 million last year when they reduced LOS by 1 day utilizing our Capacity Management Suite™ XT platform. Talk about return on investment!

When polling our webinar audience, 80% said that their ALOS was between 4.5 days to 5.6 days. How does your hospital stack up?

At the conclusion of her presentation, Romano outlined 5 simple steps your hospital can deploy to reduce LOS:

1. Use pending and confirmed patient discharges to accurately predict hospital capacity.

2. Use discharge and transfer milestones to track the progress of your patient.

3. Use patient placement indicators to denote patient and bed attributes.

4. Use real-time location and discharge automation.

5. Use the length of stay column in the electronic bedboard.

To register for the remaining sessions in the webinar series: “7 Ways to Master Operational Efficiencies in Your Hospital,” please click on the individual session titles below.

Webinar Series: 7 Ways to Master Operational Efficiencies In Your Hospital
Fridays from 11:00 AM to 11:30AM EST
Hosted by TeleTracking’s very own Maria Romano, RN, BS Clinical Product Consultant

• Session 4: (Friday, Mar. 8): Patient Placement and the Notion Behind Pull vs. Push
• Session 5: (Friday, Mar. 22): The Benefits of a Centralized Patient Transport Department
• Session 6: (Friday, Apr. 5): The Value of Real-Time Dirty Bed Notifications
• Session 7: (Friday, Apr. 19): Disaster Planning for Mass Casualty or Weather Incidents

We hope to see you soon!