Rita Numerof, Ph.D., President of Numerof & Associates, Inc. (NAI), presented to members of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) at the 2010 Congress on Healthcare Leadership, March 21-23, 2010.

In her session, titled New Strategies For Reducing Length Of Stay, Dr. Numerof shared insights on managing patient throughput based on her extensive work with leading delivery systems.

Length of stay (LOS) has been a perennial sore spot for most delivery organizations, because it’s been so challenging to manage through conventional approaches, and it’s easy to rationalize away small variances. But there’s big money there. Every quarter-day above the norm costs over $5 million per ten thousand discharges — annually. In these tough times, hospitals can’t afford to ignore such opportunities.

Dr. Numerof illustrated how systemic approaches to the throughput challenge can yield breakthrough success, and how to build support for such initiatives.