How Efficient Workflows Create Safer Patient Care

In healthcare, efficiency and safety often appear to be opposing forces. Leaders face what seems like an impossible choice: streamline operations and risk cutting corners on safety protocols, or maintain rigorous safety standards and accept slower, more costly workflows. 

This binary framing has become so ingrained that many healthcare executives approach operational improvements with genuine apprehension. The fear is understandable because patient safety is non-negotiable, and any initiative that might compromise it deserves careful scrutiny.

However, this either-or view misses the fact that inefficient workflows themselves actively create safety risks. The delays, workarounds, and frustrations that stem from poorly designed processes directly contribute to the conditions where errors occur.

The most successful healthcare leaders recognize this nuance. Rather than viewing efficiency and safety as competing priorities requiring careful balance, they understand that these goals are actually intrinsically connected. When workflows are well-designed, both efficiency and safety improve together.

 

How Inefficiency Introduces Risk Into Care Delivery

When workflows break down, the consequences extend far beyond wasted time or frustrated staff. Operational inefficiencies create the precise conditions where clinical errors become more likely. Here are a few examples of how seemingly minor workflow problems translate into genuine safety risks:

Delays in Care 

When clinical staff can’t quickly locate necessary equipment, time-sensitive care becomes vulnerable. Missing equipment delays diagnosis, treatment, and medication administration. This is especially critical in situations such as stroke response or sepsis management, where delays can directly impact patient outcomes. The stress of searching while a patient waits increases cognitive load on clinicians, reducing situational awareness and creating conditions where errors become more likely.

Unsafe Substitutions 

When the correct equipment can’t be found, staff face a difficult choice: delay care or substitute whatever is available. These substitutions might include using a different device model with unfamiliar controls, selecting an improper mobility aid that doesn’t match patient specifications, or grabbing non-standard supplies from another unit. While these workarounds may seem minor in the moment, healthcare safety depends on consistency and standardization. Each deviation from established protocols introduces variability into care delivery, creating new opportunities for error.

Workarounds Become the Standard 

When inefficiencies persist, the temporary fixes clinicians create eventually become the “way we do things here.” What starts as an individual nurse’s creative solution becomes an unofficial protocol passed down during orientation—an example of how powerful behavior change can be, even when it’s working against safety rather than supporting it. 

New staff members learn these workarounds as standard practice, often without understanding they’re bypassing official procedures. The most concerning aspect is that these informal processes sidestep safety checks, documentation requirements, and established protocols, turning one-time solutions into embedded behaviors across entire units or shifts.

 

Improve Efficiency and Safety Simultaneously

Real-time location systems (RTLS) are a practical example of technology that addresses both efficiency and safety concerns. These systems use sensors and tags to track the location and status of equipment, staff, and patients throughout a healthcare facility. Rather than requiring staff to search multiple storage areas or call around to locate needed devices, RTLS provides instant visibility into what’s available and where it’s located. 

This immediate visibility creates multiple benefits:

• Staff spend less time searching and more time delivering direct patient care
• Equipment substitutions become unnecessary when the right device can be located in seconds
• Usage patterns reveal bottlenecks and shortages before they impact patient care
• Maintenance schedules stay on track by monitoring equipment usage and service intervals
• Consistent workflows reduce the variability that creates opportunities for error

RTLS In Real Life (IRL)

Here are concrete examples of how RTLS can simultaneously improve efficiency and prevent safety risks:

Preventing Catheter-Related Complications: A patient hasn’t voided in eight hours post-surgery, and protocol requires bladder scanning before catheterization. RTLS immediately locates an available scanner in the adjacent unit, allowing the nurse to verify retention and proceed with appropriate care rather than performing an unnecessary invasive procedure or delaying intervention.

Life-or-Death Equipment Access: A trauma patient with massive hemorrhage needs immediate rapid transfusion, but the rapid infuser can’t be located. RTLS shows a unit available in the ICU equipment bay, enabling the team to retrieve it and begin resuscitation without life-threatening delays.

Time-Critical Medication Administration: A patient’s blood pressure drops to 78/45, requiring an immediate vasopressor infusion that must be delivered via IV pump. Instead of searching while the patient deteriorates, RTLS reveals three available pumps on the unit, enabling medication administration within minutes.

 

What Hospital Leaders Are Prioritizing

The connection between efficiency and safety is reflected in what hospital executives identify as their top priorities. In a recent internal survey of VP-level hospital leaders, patient flow optimization, scheduling, and inventory management ranked among the top operational priorities. These are the exact areas where breakdowns create delays in care, increase clinician stress, and introduce risk at the bedside. Leaders increasingly recognize that inefficiency is a safety exposure, not just an inconvenience.

The workforce impact is just as important. In the survey, 42% of leaders said reducing staff burnout is one of their top priorities. Burnout is often driven by everyday frustrations, such as searching for equipment, making do with substitutes, or dealing with workflow slowdowns. When clinicians are distracted by these problems, it becomes harder to stay focused on patient care.

Just as interesting, executives aren’t asking for more dashboards or extra data—they’re already drowning in it. As we’ve discussed before, healthcare leaders face data overwhelm, with countless metrics and dashboards competing for their attention. What they actually want is clarity: technology that cuts through the noise to surface the insights that matter most. 

The survey showed that leaders care most about clear ROI and tools that are easy to implement, not systems that collect more data for the sake of it. They’re looking for solutions that turn blind spots into visibility and help staff act faster, not tools that add another layer of complexity.

RTLS fits squarely into this demand. By making physical resources visible in real time, it removes one of the most common sources of hidden inefficiency: uncertainty. 

 

Designing Systems Where the Safe Path Is the Easy Path

Efficiency and safety are not competing goals. In well-designed systems, they reinforce each other.

When healthcare organizations improve visibility, reduce workflow friction, and support consistent processes, they make it easier for staff to do the right thing under pressure. That protects patients and it protects clinicians. Tools that provide real-time visibility and operational awareness are a part of the foundational safety infrastructure.

High-quality care depends on systems that make the safest action the most supported and reliable action. Leaders who understand this connection can invest in technology and workflows that strengthen both efficiency and clinical quality at the same time.