Lorinda Stahley’s job as an emergency room nurse in Florida is a far cry from her old military specialty, directing helicopters and keeping meticulous records from her vantage point in the flight tower as an air traffic controller.
At least — it used to be. But when she arrived at the AdventHealth Orlando hospital in 2014, she noticed patients were getting stuck in the waiting room because there wasn’t a good system for notifying the medical staff when there was an empty bed. So, as director of nursing for emergency service and observation medicine, she made one. She set up a control room and put someone in charge of directing where patients should go, an approach that’s dramatically cut down on patient wait times.
