The Crucial Role of Operational Efficiency in Reducing Diagnostic Delays
Diagnostic errors, particularly delays in testing, stand out as significant safety challenges within the healthcare industry. Major diagnostic errors are identified in 10% to 20% of autopsies, and it is estimated that 40,000 to 80,000 patients lose their lives annually in the United States due to diagnostic errors. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine defines a diagnostic error as the failure to establish an accurate and timely explanation of a patient's health problem or communicate that explanation effectively. Diagnostic delays are among the easiest of these errors to address and can often be remedied with the right processes and technology in place.
It’s crucial that healthcare leaders acknowledge the pivotal role operational efficiency plays in mitigating diagnostic delays and address the issue of diagnostic errors head-on.
Operational Efficiency and Diagnostic Delays
A lack of operational efficiency may be a contributing factor in a significant percentage of diagnostic errors, particularly those related to delays. In order to increase your efficiency, one of the most important goals should be to improve your organization’s diagnostic stewardship. Diagnostic stewardship focuses on optimizing the use of diagnostic tests within a hospital setting, ensuring that tests are performed at the right time and with the right interpretation.
The Consequences of Ignoring Diagnostic Stewardship
Failure to implement diagnostic stewardship can result in crowded schedules, long wait times, and the unnecessary waste of valuable diagnostic resources due to inefficiencies. These issues not only delay the delivery of care but also contribute to increased costs and operational waste.
For example, ineffective diagnostic stewardship may be plaguing areas such as your imaging department. Instances where patients are not properly prepped, such as incomplete MRI checklists or failure to observe necessary pre-test protocols like fasting, lead to unnecessary disruptions and delays. Nurses, transporters, and imaging technologists also invest valuable time only to have patients sent back to their rooms, rendering the process inefficient. This not only causes delays in diagnosis for the specific patient but also deprives other patients and their care teams of timely testing, resulting in a growing diagnostic backlog and inefficiencies that disrupt the entire organization.
It is imperative for organizations to recognize the impact of ignoring diagnostic stewardship on both patient outcomes and the overall efficiency of healthcare delivery. Uncovering these gaps remains a challenge without the appropriate operational tools.
Operational Solutions to Improve Diagnostic Processes
Technology-based operational solutions encourage diagnostic stewardship by providing real-time data analytics and insights into diagnostic test scheduling and utilization. This improves holistic visibility to the demand for diagnostic testing and ensures you have the right people and processes to evaluate diagnostic orders. With this technology, healthcare providers can identify patterns of overutilization, such as duplicate testing or inpatient tests that could be more appropriately delivered in an outpatient setting. Additionally, such solutions enable optimized scheduling which shortens diagnostic turnaround times, creating a safer, better experience for patients.
Cutting-edge technology, such as the CareEdge™ digital health platform, plays a pivotal role in supporting diagnostic stewardship. This platform helps your team achieve enhanced visibility and identifies opportunities for improvement. It notifies you of bottlenecks in diagnostic processes and provides recommendations for removing these bottlenecks. By integrating this type of technology into diagnostic processes, hospitals can deliver the right tests to the right patients at the right time.
Fewer Delays, Safer Patients
Patient safety requires the timeliest diagnostic testing possible, and this can only be achieved by eliminating delays in the diagnostic journey. By prioritizing diagnostic stewardship and investing in technology that enhances operational and diagnostic efficiency, healthcare providers can not only reduce diagnostic errors but also ensure that patients receive the care they need in a timely manner. The implementation of diagnostic stewardship practices and operational technology is the key to achieving both resource optimization and delivery of high-quality care to patients.