From Evidence to Practice: How a Medical Librarian Helped Shape a Hospital Discharge Lounge
Submitted by: Natalie Bishop
Medical librarians are often recognized for their role in supporting clinical care, research, and education. But their expertise can also contribute to another important area of health care: hospital operations.
When our hospital began developing a Discharge Lounge, I had the opportunity, as the hospital’s medical librarian, to help build the evidence base behind the initiative.
The goal of the Discharge Lounge was straightforward: create a safe, comfortable place where eligible patients who had been discharged could wait for transportation or their final departure from the hospital. By moving these patients out of inpatient rooms when appropriate, those rooms could become available sooner for other patients who needed them.
Before the concept became an operational process, however, the project team needed to understand what other health care organizations had learned from implementing similar models.
Finding the Evidence Behind the Idea
To support the project, I searched the published literature on discharge lounges, patient flow, and discharge timing. I compiled research and examples from other hospitals, looking at areas that could inform local decision-making, including:
- Bed availability and patient throughput
- Staffing models
- Eligibility criteria
- Patient safety considerations
- Patient experience while waiting to leave the hospital
I organized the findings into summaries that the project team could use as they made decisions about how our own Discharge Lounge would operate.
Having that evidence readily available gave the team an opportunity to build upon approaches that had already been used elsewhere, anticipate common challenges, and consider how those lessons could be adapted to our patients and our organization.
For me, it was especially rewarding to see the evidence move off the page and into practice.
Creating a Better Path to Discharge
The completed Discharge Lounge can accommodate up to 14 patients and operates Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Patients are cared for by a dedicated registered nurse and nursing assistant.
But the lounge represents more than a new physical space. Its success depends on collaboration across the hospital.
“The Discharge Lounge began with a simple goal: improve patient flow while creating a better transition out of the hospital for our patients,” said Eric Smith, MSN, RN, Director, Capacity Command Center.
Smith noted that patients who were ready to leave the hospital sometimes remained in inpatient beds while waiting for transportation or their final departure. At the same time, other patients were waiting for those beds.
“The lounge gives eligible, discharged patients a comfortable and dedicated space to wait, allowing their inpatient room to become available sooner,” Smith said. “That seemingly simple change can have an impact across the hospital, from the Emergency Department and procedural areas to nursing units and support services.”
Developing the lounge required contributions from nursing, providers, case management, patient transport, environmental services, hospital leadership, and the medical library.
As Smith explained, the larger goal is to cultivate a shared sense of responsibility around patient flow: “Ultimately, every bed we can make available sooner represents an opportunity to care for the next patient who needs us.”
Discharge Lounge at a Glance
- Maximum capacity: 14 patients
- Hours: Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- Staffing: Dedicated registered nurse and nursing assistant
- Purpose: Provide a safe, comfortable space for eligible discharged patients while helping inpatient beds become available sooner for the next patient who needs care
Where the Medical Library Fits
For medical librarians, this project is an example of how our skills can contribute beyond the traditional boundaries of the library.
Evidence is valuable not only when a clinician is making a patient-care decision or a researcher is developing a study. It can also help teams evaluate operational ideas, learn from the experiences of other organizations, identify potential challenges, and make more informed decisions about new programs and services.
In this case, the library helped connect published evidence with an interdisciplinary team working to solve an operational challenge.
It is easy to think of a literature search as the end product of a librarian’s work. Experiences like this are a reminder that the search may actually be the beginning.
When librarians bring evidence to the people designing programs, improving processes, and making decisions across their organizations, that evidence has the opportunity to become something tangible.
For our hospital, it became part of the foundation for a new approach to discharge.
And for me, it was a rewarding reminder of how medical librarians can help turn evidence into action.
Celebrate National Medical Librarians Month by sharing your impact story.