DETROIT (WXYZ) — For years, Detroit Medical Center told patients that when they walked into the emergency room at one of their hospitals, it would take about 29 minutes on average to see a doctor.
It's a statistic the health system has been very proud to share and in the last year, DMC says they've improved that statistic even further.
The health system says about a year ago, they took a survey of patients asking them how they could improve care. DMC says the most significant feedback they received from patients was requests to improve wait times in the ER.
"We started looking at 'Okay where were we before the pandemic?' We have the same physician group that we had then and try to dissect it," said CEO Brittany Lavis. "This is what our patients want and what our patients need. So, we put our patients at the center of it."
Lavis says by adding staff, streamlining the triage and registration processes, and encouraging lab testing right away, they cut the average time it takes a patient to see a doctor in the ER down to 21 minutes on average across their hospitals. At Detroit Receiving Hospital, the average time is even faster at 18 minutes.
"Anytime you’re coming in for an emergency it’s not where you want to be. It’s usually at an inconvenient time. As a mom, it always seems to be right when you’re putting the kids to bed," said Lavis. "I think the biggest thing is just getting people on to the next phase but also getting them answers. If you’re coming in and you’re sitting, waiting hours for an answer, it’s not even so much the inconvenience of waiting for that answer, it’s the stress to your body just not knowing the answer. Some people come in for emergencies that maybe aren’t that serious but when there is something really serious we owe it to our patients to get them an answer faster."
Lavis says they're now focusing on reducing the total time a patient spends at the hospital from the emergency room to discharge. Currently, it takes a patient 168 minutes on average from walk-in to discharge. The health system is aiming to reduce that number to 150 minutes, which is what it was pre-pandemic.
"That wait time can be a critical period. In emergency medicine, we allude to, what we talk about the golden hour because sometimes when important organs are involved, sometimes all you have is about an hour to intervene to ensure those organs survive," said Dr. Roy Elrod.
Dr. Elrod has worked at Detroit Receiving Hospital for more than three decades and is currently the hospital's Chief of Staff. He says he can remember the days when everything was handwritten including discharge instructions. He says at that time is was nearly impossible to streamline or speed up the process of getting patients treated and out of the door.
Dr. Elrod also spoke about the challenges they faced during the pandemic which not only impacted patient trust but made it difficult to get patients in and out in a short time.
"Patients were fearful about coming to facilities where they thought not only would they be sick, but you couldn’t keep them alive. So it was just an awful feeling because I’ve been here for so long. It was hard," said Dr. Elrod. "We’ve been in this community for a long time. We’ve seen every type of patient, their ability to pay or not, insured or not and we’ve taken on really those patients that many institutions wouldn’t. So coming back out of the pandemic we had to reassure them, it was a lot, that we were ready standing by to take care of them again and they could feel safe coming back here."
DMC says the improvements not only mean making the patient experience better but it could also mean saving more lives as they work to build trust with patients after the pandemic.
"We have not reached our destination yet we’re very proud of the work that we’ve done and we’re going to relentlessly pursue it," said Lavis.
