A hospital system is working to decrease door to balloon times for patients who present to the ED with ST elevation myocardial infarctions (STEMI). Door to balloon is the amount of time that occurs between when a patient enters the ED with STEMI to the time the patient’s blocked coronary artery is opened via a percutaneous coronary intervention. The hospital goal for door to balloon times is 90 minutes but that goal was only being met 80% of the time. Hospital administration determined that a task force should be created to determine changes needed to the process in order to meet this goal 100% of the time.

1.

Who should be members of the task force?

2.

Utilizing a systems thinking approach, what processes should be analyzed for changes?

3.

What evidence should the task force gather related to changing the policy and procedures?