Cheryl Batchelor and I gave our NTI Sunrise Session presentation this morning to a crowd of 300 critical care nurses -- an excellent turn-out for 7am in New Orleans. Most were managers, with a smattering of staff nurses, educators and students. Cheryl and I tag teamed; I addressed the JCAHO patient flow standard, ways to improve patient flow and introduced the variable acuity care model, while Cheryl described her specific experience at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital.

After the introductions I lead off with 3 questions to the group:

  1. How many of you are in ICUs that are at or near capacity most of the time. The vast majority raised their hands.
  2. How many have patients in your ICU that don't require 1:2 or 1:1 nurse/patient ratios, but can't be monitored elsewhere. I didn't even finish the question before hands started to go up, again a heavy majority.
  3. How many spend a substantial amount of time looking for rooms to discharge your patients, and fielding calls from the ED and other feeder units. Again, I got as far as "discharge" and the hands shot up -- a bit fewer on this question than the first two.

If you (or your customers) answered yes to any of these questions, check out the presentation.  You can download it here (right click and Save Target As... or Save Link Target As...). If you have any questions, or need some help with your patient flow issues, let me know.