Impact of a hospital digital coordination centre on patient flow in a large tertiary centre
- 1University of Melbourne, Centre for Digital Transformation of Health
Abstract
Hospitals globally are under increasing strain due to rising demand and constrained capacity. This interrupted-time-series study evaluates the impact of a digital coordination centre, implemented on August 28th of 2023, where a multidisciplinary operational team (comprising data scientists, patient flow managers, facilities managers, patient transport and nursing staff, for example) use real-time data dashboards showing measures of emergency department (ED) crowding and inpatient utilisation to optimise patient flow in an Australian metropolitan tertiary hospital. Analysis of 191,415 emergency department arrivals admitted to acute care and 187,783 acute inpatient episodes between July 2020 and July 2025 showed substantial improvements in measures of patient flow: 33% decrease in ED length of stay, 73% increase in hospital admissions from the ED within four hours of arrival, 7% decrease in inpatient length of stay, and 5% increase in discharges completed before noon. These changes coincided with a broader programme of organisational and operational reform, of which the DCC was a central integrating component. Hence, the findings support digitally enabled coordination centres as an effective contribution the overall strategy for improving hospital operational efficiency.
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BibTeX
@misc{davey2026impact,
title = {{Impact of a hospital digital coordination centre on patient flow in a large tertiary centre}},
author = {B. Davey and L. Shaw and S. Plumb and S. Aranha and T. Fazio and T. Spelman and W. Chapman and B. Astbury and J. Gazarek and P. A. D. Steel and D. Capurro and P. Y. Cornell},
howpublished = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.64898/2026.11.02.26367112},
url = {https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.26367112v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Impact of a hospital digital coordination centre on patient flow in a large tertiary centre
AU - B. Davey
AU - L. Shaw
AU - S. Plumb
AU - S. Aranha
AU - T. Fazio
AU - T. Spelman
AU - W. Chapman
AU - B. Astbury
AU - J. Gazarek
AU - P. A. D. Steel
AU - D. Capurro
AU - P. Y. Cornell
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/02
PB - medRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.11.02.26367112
UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.26367112v1
AB - Hospitals globally are under increasing strain due to rising demand and constrained capacity. This interrupted-time-series study evaluates the impact of a digital coordination centre, implemented on August 28th of 2023, where a multidisciplinary operational team (comprising data scientists, patient flow managers, facilities managers, patient transport and nursing staff, for example) use real-time data dashboards showing measures of emergency department (ED) crowding and inpatient utilisation to optimise patient flow in an Australian metropolitan tertiary hospital. Analysis of 191,415 emergency department arrivals admitted to acute care and 187,783 acute inpatient episodes between July 2020 and July 2025 showed substantial improvements in measures of patient flow: 33% decrease in ED length of stay, 73% increase in hospital admissions from the ED within four hours of arrival, 7% decrease in inpatient length of stay, and 5% increase in discharges completed before noon. These changes coincided with a broader programme of organisational and operational reform, of which the DCC was a central integrating component. Hence, the findings support digitally enabled coordination centres as an effective contribution the overall strategy for improving hospital operational efficiency.
ER -