About ED PIP
The Emergency Department Process Improvement Program (ED PIP) is a component of Ontario's Wait Time Strategy. ED PIP is designed to support improvements to hospital flow and build capabilities within hospitals for long term sustainable change.
ED PIP began in March, 2009 with five hospitals in one Local Health Integration Network (LHIN). Two additional waves of implementation were undertaken (Wave 2: September 2009 ~ May 2010 and Wave 3: May 2010 ~ December 2010), which has involved the participation of 56 hospitals across Ontario. The final wave will kick off in early 2011.
ED PIP uses a lean improvement approach based on learnings from health care transformations in Ontario and globally. Improvement teams in hospitals examine patient flow from "end to end": from arrival in the ED through to discharge from the inpatient units. Each improvement wave lasts approximately 8 months, including four main phases (Diagnostic, Solution Design, Pilot and Roll out). Hospitals participating in ED PIP have support from expert coaches in health care improvement. The coach focuses on building internal capabilities so that hospitals can lead transformative improvements that can spread and be sustained across their organization. In addition, hospital teams have access to practice experts, regional training forums, a collaborative document sharing site, and a comprehensive toolkit explaining the PIP approach.
Since 2009, 61 hospitals (including both fully participating and "light touch" hospitals) have participated in the various waves of ED PIP. Click here to view a list of previous and current fully participating hospitals and learn of their accomplishments through ED PIP by accessing case studies, sample improvement statistics, participant quotes and vignettes.