Return to Main Menu

UHC rates MUSC among top in performance by Brook Raynal Public Relations MUSC stands tall among member institutions participating in a recent study conducted by the University HealthSystem Consortium, an alliance of the clinical enterprises of academic health centers. The UHC’s Managing Patient Flow Benchmarking Project studied 61 institutions to examine the ways they handle their admission process, bed management, care coordination, discharge planning, the discharge process, bed turnaround time, and the management of observation and short stay patients. Honored as a “better performer” along with three other institutions, MUSC performed better than 75 percent of participants on “time from request to bed ready” for an unplanned medical admission, and better than 90 percent on “time from request to bed ready” for a patient in Postoperative Anesthesia Care Unit. MUSC performed better than 50 percent of the participants on the length of stay for patients that tend to have short stays. “Tremendous efforts have been undertaken by our staff to increase communication between nursing units and bed management,” said Lynne Nemeth, director of Outcomes Management, Research and Development. “Strong case management and discharge planning within MUSC have also led to these accomplishments.” As a result of the study, UHC representatives visited MUSC on Jan. 10 to identify the strategies that were used in MUSC’s successful performance in the project. They met with Administration/Quality Council representatives, the discharge performance improvement team, the access performance improvement team, Outcomes Management, and nursing directors. Nemeth was asked to speak about the accomplishments of the Patient Flow Benchmarking Project at the Knowledge Transfer Meeting to be held March 7 and 8 in Miami Beach. UHC case studies will include MUSC practices and experiences in future publications.