HAP Achievement Awards: WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital

August 01, 2025

HAP's annual Achievement Awards honor hospitals and health systems for their innovation, creativity, and commitment to patient care. The Achievement Awards showcase and share member hospitals’ and health systems’ successful programs and best practices.

WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital received the Optimal Operations Award for improving hospital throughput by expediting discharges and streamlining patient transitions.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The challenge:  Delays in discharge, inconsistent care placement, staffing shortages, and ICU bottlenecks disrupted patient throughput and created safety risks and frustration across teams.
• Addressing the Issue:  Root cause analysis identified inconsistent nurse staffing, uneven admission distribution, communication gaps, and limited access to diagnostics as key drivers of delays and barriers to appropriate patient placement.
• Taking Action:  To improve throughput, the team implemented coordinated rounds, discharge huddles, surge calls, virtual nursing, workflow changes, and cultural shifts that empowered staff, streamlined communication, and enhanced behavioral health care through the relocation of crisis services.
• Results:  The organization saw significant improvements in patient outcomes, safety, and satisfaction, including reduced excess days, shorter emergency department wait times and boarding, fewer diversions and falls, and increased staff engagement, all while maintaining high-quality, timely care.
• Advancing Care:  In their submission, the team reflected on the transformation that underpinned their progress, stating: “A cultural shift towards enhanced communication and collaboration has been fundamental to the successful implementation of this program.”

Congratulations to WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital for its outstanding efforts to improve operations and care. Learn more about the project online.

Questions about the HAP Achievement Awards may be directed to HAP Member Services at (717) 561-5359.