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Aurora Health Care: St. Luke’s Medical Center

  • Location: Milwaukee, WI
  • Award: Emergency Department of the Quarter
  • Awarded: October 2017
Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center is a leading medical center located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, part of the Aurora Health Care system, which includes 15 hospitals and more than 150 clinics across Northern Illinois and Eastern Wisconsin serving more than 1.2 million patients annually.  Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center is known as a global leader in delivering best in class care, including world-renowned cardiologists, oncologists, neurologists, orthopedics and researchers, all at the 732-bed facility.
 

Results and Achievements

Aurora St. Luke’s Heart and Vascular team received a three-star rating for the three most common heart procedures in the U.S., a rating only 1.17 percent of U.S. heart centers have achieved. The hospital’s leading hybrid operating room and cath lab allows the medical center to be a leader in minimally invasive heart procedures including transcatheter aortic valve replacements (TAVR), of which the team at Aurora St. Luke’s has performed more of this procedure than any other hospital in the state. Aurora St. Luke’s was the first hospital in Wisconsin to perform a heart transplant, and is a leader today in heart transplant and heart assist devices. Aurora’s St. Luke’s Neurology and Neurosurgery team brings together an integrated team of world-class experts in brain and skull based surgery, and have pioneered many first in the neurosciences spaces. Aurora St. Luke’s is a Comprehensive Stroke Center through Joint Commission, a distinction held by fewer than 90 hospitals in the nation.
 
Aurora St. Luke is ranked as the number one hospital in Milwaukee and the number two hospital in Wisconsin by US News & World Reports for their 2017-2018 ratings. The hospital also ranks in the top 50 nationally in five categories, including cardiology and heart surgery, gastroenterology and GI surgery, geriatrics, gynecology and pulmonology. The hospital has been designated as a Magnet Hospital for four consecutive years, and also has achieved Gold Plus Target Stroke and Gold Plus Target Heart Failure Honor Roll Elite recognition from the American Heart Association.
 
Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center is proud to be a Comprehensive Stroke Center, having a 24/7 Cath Lab staffed with an onsite cardiologist, Resuscitation Center with hypothermia, and a 4th Magnet recognition.
 
At Aurora Health Care, they put people first. That’s why their patients are at the very heart of everything they do. Their purpose is to help people live well.
 
Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center is flagship quaternary and tertiary hospital within the Aurora hospital system. The Emergency Department is the front entrance to their facility.
 
The Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center Emergency Department has seen higher than expected growth over the past several years. In fact, for the past two years they have seen an increase of 4% year over year. They attribute this growth to reputation, service and quality outcomes, and their incredible partnership the community and EMS.
 
The Emergency Department is on track to see over 80,000 patients this year. Inside the department, you will find 52 exam rooms and an internal waiting room (Continuous Care Area) hosting 15 reclining chairs for their vertical patients who do not require a room. The care zones within the department are designed to see specific acuity levels which allows for dedicated attention and treatment based on the chief complaint and or injury. Therefore, caregivers are not challenged with making decisions based prioritized needs. The ankle injury gets the same level of attention and prioritization that the patient with chest pain receives due to the dedicated care zones. This allows the department to successfully achieve a high level of service and quality.
 
Over the past two years, the Emergency Department Leadership Team has dramatically revamped their care delivery model to ensure top decile throughput metrics, a zero diversion department, and top decile patient experience scores when compared to emergency departments seeing greater than 40,000 patients per year.
 
Patients using the emergency department are seen by a provider in less than 10 minutes and have an average length of stay of 154 minutes. This results in the department having an average Left Without Being Seen rate of 0.8% in 2017. The department is also very proud of their ability to treat pain for their potential long bone fractured patients in less than 14 minutes.
 
Due to their incredible partnership with their Inpatient peers, they have been able to achieve a zero diversion environment built on efficient patient flow, emergency department prioritization when needed, and a discharge before noon rate exceeding 30%.
 
As a result of the hospital’s intense dedication to hospital flow and emergency department throughput they are achieving a 213-minute length of stay for admitted patients with more than 70% receiving a bed assignment in less than 10 minutes.
 
The success of the Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center Emergency Department is due to their holistic synergy between all essential partners, key stake holders, and an Administrative team that provides incredible support in their ability to provide the very best care to all their patients.
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