Projects

IHS Hospital Check-in Redesign

Piloting new processes for receiving non-urgent patients in the Emergency Room of the Whiteriver Indian Hospital in the White Mountains of Arizona.

Executive Summary

Hospitals of the Indian Health Service (IHS) have constant issues of long wait times and an overcrowded Emergency Department. Meanwhile, due to limited resources and lack of availability of clinical appointments, many tribal patients use the Emergency Department of IHS hospitals as walk-in clinics. A new process or system could allow patients to get routed very quickly to the appropriate clinic, pharmacy, med tech, or other area of the hospital. This team will pilot the use of a new system or process in the Whiteriver Indian Hospital, a rural IHS hospital located in the White Mountains of Arizona serving approximately 17,000 tribal members.

A project supported by the: HHS Ignite Accelerator

Team Members

Marliza Rivera (Project Lead), IHS
Alysia Cardona, IHS
Jose Burgos, IHS

Milestones

May 2014: Project selected into the HHS Ignite Accelerator
June 2014: Time in the Accelerator began
September 2014: Time in the Accelerator ended

Project Sponsor

Willadine Hughes, Quality Management Director, Whiteriver Indian Hospital, Whiteriver, AZ