Typically, there’s a mismatch between hospital admissions and discharges. The peak of discharges is often late in the day (Fig 1) preventing early patient flow from emergency departments and assessment units to inpatient wards.
This study highlights the impact discharge timeliness has on hospital crowding and emergency department flow. The conclusion from the study was that enabling more discharges earlier in the day creates capacity for incoming patient flow, reducing time spent waiting for an inpatient bed, reducing hospital length of stay and occupancy. It is important that a hospital’s discharge profile mirrors its decision-to-admit profile (Fig 2) so that beds are available as admission decisions are made. In many cases, changing the discharge profile can have a noticeable impact, so that more patients leave two or three hours earlier each day.
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