Innovative approach to the aims for improvement: emergency department patient throughput in an impacted urban setting.

Los Angeles County is in crisis with its emergency ambulatory care. Many barriers exist at the hospital level that affect patient throughput. A case study is presented for St. Francis Medical Center, a 384-bed hospital in southeast Los Angeles. Its governing board has put out a call to have its emergency department oversee intraprocess and interprocess improvements to enhance patient movement through the system. These innovative front- and back-end initiatives are examined using the Institute of Medicine's Six Aims for Improvement. Details on each of the initiatives are provided along with how the leadership monitors the progress.