Impact of a hospital digital coordination centre on patient flow in a large tertiary centre

Hospitals globally are under increasing strain due to rising demand and constrained capacity. This interrupted-time-series study evaluates the impact of a digital coordination centre, implemented on August 28th of 2023, where a multidisciplinary operational team (comprising data scientists, patient flow managers, facilities managers, patient transport and nursing staff, for example) use real-time data dashboards showing measures of emergency department (ED) crowding and inpatient utilisation to optimise patient flow in an Australian metropolitan tertiary hospital. Analysis of 191,415 emergency department arrivals admitted to acute care and 187,783 acute inpatient episodes between July 2020 and July 2025 showed substantial improvements in measures of patient flow: 33% decrease in ED length of stay, 73% increase in hospital admissions from the ED within four hours of arrival, 7% decrease in inpatient length of stay, and 5% increase in discharges completed before noon. These changes coincided with a broader programme of organisational and operational reform, of which the DCC was a central integrating component. Hence, the findings support digitally enabled coordination centres as an effective contribution the overall strategy for improving hospital operational efficiency.