Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, a public, 373-bed hospital, has one of the busiest emergency departments in California, with approximately 100,000 ED patients treated every year. As with almost all busy EDs, Arrowhead wanted to improve its time to provider (TTP) without compromising patient care.

 

• RME yields successful results

  Thanks to the implementation of CEP America's Rapid Medical Evaluation® (RME) program, the wait times for Arrowhead patients are now significantly lower than wait times at most EDs with half as many patient visits.
  
  In fact, time to provider was cut in half—from 80 minutes to 39 minutes. At the same time, patient satisfaction remained high, and nearly 80% fewer patients left without being seen. Arrowhead’s ED providers and staff achieved these milestones even as patient volumes significantly increased by more than 15% over the course of two years.
  

• Treating more patients in less space

  Arrowhead’s accomplishments are even more noteworthy in light of the proportionally small investment the site made against their overall gain. As a county site, Arrowhead is required to adhere to union regulations, which, in this case, translated into spending approximately $300,000 to execute the physical plant improvements that were required to implement RME.
  
  However, once the improvements were complete, Arrowhead was able to treat 100% of its non-ambulanced patients in just 15% of its available space. This greater throughput has enabled the ED to treat more patients, which in turn, is allowing Arrowhead to more than cover the costs for the physical plant improvements in a relatively short timeframe, and is leading to increased revenue for the hospital as a whole.