Never on Thursday: Flow and wait times at the DMV vs. the ER

Guest Post by Paul Rosen, MD

wait and flow ERA couple of weeks ago, I received the dreaded letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Visions of long lines, sitting on hard plastic chairs, and hours of wasted time went through my mind. It was a reminder to go to the DMV to renew my soon-to-expire Delaware driver license.

The bottom of the letter suggested I go to their website for more information. I assumed the website would offer nothing helpful. But I was wrong. On my iPhone, I could see there were currently 43 customers in the cue at the New Castle County DMV, and the wait time was 13 minutes.

Wow, perhaps the DMV had changed since my previous license renewal experiences. I brought my 13-year-old-son with me to check it out.

When we arrived, we approached the greeter’s desk and encountered a smiling lady who asked us three scripted questions. In a friendly tone she offered us the option of the standard process or the kiosk. The standard process appeared to be moving briskly, but since I had my tech-savvy son with me, I went for the kiosk.

After that, I was shocked to realize that I was walking out of the DMV with my newly printed license—just 8 minutes later. My son asked, “What was so bad about that?” Will he never experience the waiting lines and wasted time of the dreaded DMV?

Are those days gone forever?

In 2013, the hospital patient flow guru Eugene Litvak published Don’t get your operation on a Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. In it, he proposes how long lines in the ER can be fixed. The solution is the OR schedule.

There are two kinds of variability, he explains: natural variability and artificial variability. Natural variability is the volume of patients who arrive at the ER front door and get admitted; a flow that cannot be controlled.

Artificial variability is the patients admitted based on the surgery schedule. If the operations are booked heavily early in the week, and lightly later in the week, then the ER will be backed up early in the week due to fewer available beds. Beds are reserved to receive patients from the operating room.

Litvak argues that if the surgeries are evenly spaced throughout the week, patients will flow better through the ER, and the admission process will not be backed up. There is no need to build larger hospitals or hire more staff.

Another supporter of high volume flow and standardization of practice is Dr. Jody Crane who wrote the book: The Definitive Guide to Emergency Department Operational Improvement: Employing Lean Principles with Current ED Best Practices to Create the “No Wait” Department. He espouses using metrics, setting timed targets, and constant process improvement work to deliver a patient experience that is reliable and efficient.

Directors of Emergency Rooms are in a tenuous position, caught between inefficiencies in the hospital “upstairs spill-over” and “ER impact-flow” downstairs. ER directors are not only saving lives and providing high quality clinical care, but expectations have grown to the point where flow, wait times and speedy service are being demanded by patients and by hospital CEOs.

The ER is the front door to the hospital and the health system. Executives want to ensure that patients have a good first impression when they arrive to the ER. Long wait times hurt the overall patient experience, even when the medical care is excellent.

I don’t mean to be facetious when I compare the DMV experience to the ER experience. The point is, however, if the DMV can employ lean processes and high-touch customer service, then I think that those of us in healthcare can work to implement the recommendations of Litvak and Crane.

Maybe, one day, my 13-year-old will not be able to remember a time when a visit to the ER meant long waiting times.

Paul Rosen, MD

Dr Paul RosenPediatric Rheumatologist Paul Rosen, MD is Clinical Director of Service and Operational Excellence at Nemours. He received a Masters of Public Health degree from Harvard University and a Masters of Medical Management degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Rosen’s interests include patient-physician communication, family-centered care, and the patient experience. He teaches medical students about improving the patient experience, and he serves as the faculty mentor for the physician executive leadership program for medical students at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University.

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