OU Medical Center Executive Summary

In order to ensure the successful completion of the internship requirements I reviewed the courses taken and the competencies set forth by CAHME. Additionally, for the duration of the internship I reviewed the syllabi for courses and the specific subcategories of the competencies to identify links between projects and experiences with their appropriate course and competency.

Major meetings and projects in regard to this report include those that were related to the throughput engagement. This is due to the fact that most of the meetings I attended were either due to the throughput engagement or I would provide updates about my observations, recommendations, project information and barriers. These updates were given during the OUMC huddles or discussions with the OU Medical Center executive leadership. Specific needs were determined after the start of my internship and upon attending initial meetings with the
corporate throughput team and with Kristina Wallace. These needs were to aide in accomplishing the goals set forth by the corporate HCA throughput team and OU Medical System executive leadership and would often include analysis or research to support the next step of the project.

If the meeting was not related to the throughput engagement, it was considered a minor meeting or project in order to provide additional experiences and other skills during the internship.

OU Medical Center is experiencing high emergency department (ED) patient volume and exceeding patient capacity.
For this reason there was a corporate performance improvement team from Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) that evaluated and helped start initiatives in order to improve the patient throughput process at OU Medical Center. At the start of my internship, I worked directly with the corporate throughput team in their data analysis and planning stage of the engagement. This section includes the projects and meetings I worked on related to patient throughput. To start, data was pulled from the electronic medical record by a senior analyst in IT&S. Based on review of the data specific to each department identified as a need; then we proceeded with operational recommendations and implementation. Below are specific aspects to the patient throughput engagement and how they relate to the learning experience of the internship. A summary of throughput in its entirety was identified as a deliverable as part of the work plan and can be found in Appendix
C.

It is common for patients seeking care within a hospital to be discharged throughout the day, and for some it happens around lunchtime. Previously at OU Medical Center, it was common for patients to be discharged around this time, but due to socioeconomic status or convenience the patient would prefer to eat lunch in their room before being discharged home. This led to the idea of providing patients a meal after discharge within the hospital cafeteria. To accomplish this, a “meal voucher” was created to allow patients to have a meal within the hospital cafeteria without being in a hospital bed.