By focusing on the patient and the patient flow, and continuously improving this, the Emergency room at Norrland’s University Hospital has managed to shorten the lead time for the patients, while simultaneously improving the working environment for the staff.

The Emergency Room at NUS had different ways of working in the daytime and at night, respectively, resulting in unnecessary inefficiencies and unnecessarily long patient lead times at the Emergency Room. Since staff from different clinics worked in the Emergency Room, there were no coordinated efforts to develop the ways of working.

Anchor has contributed with analysis and execution so that Emergency Care physicians now have taken over the work previously done in the Emergency Room by surgery and orthopedic specialists, respectively.

Emergency Care physicians have now taken over the work for surgery and orthopedic patients at the Emergency Room, and now the work is performed in the same way day and night. A common way of working has created a platform for continuous improvement of how work is done. Other important steps on this change journey have been to define and agree upon the main task for the Emergency Room, and to identify important personal traits required from staff working in the Emergency Room.

These steps, in combination with adapting the work schedules with the influx of patients, have resulted in shorter lead times for the patients as well as an improved working environment for the physicians as well as nursing staff.

Erika Nilsson

Akutläkare och medicinsk chef vid Akutsjukvården Västerbotten

Read more in this Swedish article in Dagens Medicin.