Emergency Department Overcrowding: Developing Emergency Department Capacity Through Process Improvement

Emergency department (ED) crowding is a significant and growing patient safety issue. Delays in the inpatient admission process are a significant contributor to ED crowding. We describe a systematic and comprehensive effort to decrease ED length of stay using lean manufacturing techniques derived from the Toyota Production System. Through a combination of projects, we describe how we were able to meet a hospital goal to reduce the length of time that admitted patients remain in the ED.