The Patient Progression Hub: Multidisciplinary Approach to Real-Time Coordination of Care During Daily Operations and Emergency Events

A freestanding pediatric hospital has embedded state-of-the-art technology and new roles in its operations center to improve access and streamline care of patients. The 6,000 square foot hub created a space to co-locate a multidisciplinary team including a transfer center, transport dispatch, patient flow, and care management into one space. Where the hub optimizes care progression and coordination for the day-to-day operations, it also serves as the incident command center for the hospital system. Successful command centers are both a concept, aggregating and analyzing data to create actionable insights, and a place, where key decision-makers whose job functions connect and intersect can be co-located as they collaborate to improve hospital and transport operations. This well-designed command center, supported by artificial intelligence has streamlined patient flow from dispatch to discharge, decreased inefficiencies, mitigated capacity constraints, and reduce delays in decision-making and care delivery. It has also served as a successful command center for the 2024 Superbowl parade active shooter event in Kansas City, Missouri.