The Queen's Health System

The Queen's Health System faced high demand but was constrained by prolonged length of stay (LOS), causing patients to board in the emergency department. The organization lacked standardized processes and had limited visibility into performance metrics, preventing effective patient flow improvement despite recognized need.

Queen's deployed Health Catalyst's analytics platform including the Patient Flow Explorer accelerator and Tech-Enabled Managed Services. They established a dedicated patient flow improvement team and executive steering committee, implemented a tiered capacity management plan, introduced geographically cohorted hospitalists with standardized daily interdisciplinary rounds, and stood up a centralized command center staffed by proactive patient flow coordinators.

Over 15 months, Queen's achieved an 8.4% relative reduction in average LOS, enabling patients to spend 19,000 more days at home and generating $22M in cost savings. An 8.4% relative increase in admissions over 11 months produced $1.9M in new revenue, and the initiative prevented up to 18 additional patients per day from boarding in the emergency department.

• A dedicated governance structure (improvement team + executive steering committee) with clear roles is essential for sustaining patient flow gains at scale.
• Combining real-time analytics (Patient Flow Explorer) with standardized clinical workflows (interdisciplinary rounds, geographic cohorting) creates compounding improvements in LOS and capacity.
• A centralized command center that proactively engages care teams—rather than reactively responding—is the key operational lever for managing surge and reducing ED boarding.