Renal Transplantation Path Saves $34K Per Patient

A renal transplantation clinical pathway used at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has cut length of stay from 12 days to nine and resulted in an overall savings of $33,636 per patient. Given the hospital's average annual volume of 125 renal transplant patients, that's a savings of more than $4.2 million per year. Team members attribute much of the success of the pathway to standardized order sheets. Because the care of renal transplant patients is complicated and residents change every month, it was important to maintain documents that allowed for continuity of care. The pathway includes a sheet that provides an overview of the patient's progress during the acute care stay. The overview allows those unfamiliar with the pathway to understand what is happening with the patient.