The One-Hour Discharge: How Asiri Health Is Redefining Operational Excellence in South Asian Hospitals

by Nilanga Abeysinghe

In the world of healthcare, excellence is often measured by clinical outcomes, infection rates, or the sophistication of treatment protocols. But there is another, often underestimated metric that leaves a lasting impression on patients: the efficiency of the discharge process.

Across South Asia, one of the most common complaints from hospital patients isn’t about clinical care—it’s about the wait to leave. Delays in discharge can stretch from two to six hours, often caused by a lack of coordination between departments, pending paperwork, pharmacy clearance, or billing issues. While this has long been accepted as a “normal” inefficiency in hospital systems, one healthcare institution in Sri Lanka chose to challenge the norm.

Asiri Health, one of Sri Lanka’s leading private hospital networks, has quietly set a new benchmark in the region by developing a Discharge Monitoring System (DMS) that ensures patients are discharged within just one hour of confirmation. This internal innovation is not only practical—it is transformative.

Why Discharge Delays Matter More Than We Think

The discharge process is the final chapter of a patient's hospital journey. It is the moment when patients are most eager to return home, emotionally and physically drained, with the expectation that everything will go smoothly. Yet in many hospitals, this moment becomes frustrating due to systemic inefficiencies.

Discharge delays have serious consequences:

• They create a negative final impression of the hospital experience.
• They contribute to bed blocking, affecting admissions and emergency preparedness.
• They increase complaints from patients and families, damaging the hospital’s brand.
• They lead to staff fatigue and workflow disruption across departments.

Improving this process is not just a logistical fix—it is a service improvement that directly affects the patient experience.

The Process Behind the One-Hour Discharge

The Discharge Monitoring System at Asiri Health is a digital and operational framework that ensures every department involved in discharge—nursing, billing, pharmacy, medical records, and front office—is alerted the moment a consultant approves a patient for discharge.

From that point, a targeted one-hour clock starts ticking. Every task must be completed within this window, with clear accountability for each function.

What makes the system work is not just automation or dashboards—it’s the culture of ownership embedded in it. Each delay is monitored, logged, reviewed, and followed up. If a discharge is delayed beyond the target time, the cause is analyzed, and corrective action is taken. Over time, this data-driven culture has made discharge efficiency not just a goal but a performance expectation.

Operational Excellence, Not Just Administrative Reform

The beauty of this system is that it doesn't rely on expensive external technology. It is built on clarity, communication, and accountability. By assigning specific responsibilities and monitoring every step, the system brings alignment between departments that were previously siloed.

The outcomes have been powerful:

• Most discharges are now completed within 45 to 60 minutes.
• The number of complaints related to delays has dropped significantly.
• Patients leave the hospital with a positive final impression.
• Bed occupancy is managed more efficiently, improving admissions flow.

This initiative proves that operational processes—often viewed as secondary in clinical settings—can create primary value in patient care and satisfaction.

Leadership and Institutional Vision

While the success of this process lies in the system itself, it is important to recognize the leadership culture that made it possible. The development and implementation of the Discharge Monitoring System was supported by Asiri Health’s process leadership team, with key contributions from professionals who understood both the clinical and administrative landscapes of hospital management.

Among them, Ms. Indresh Fernando , Chief Process Officer at Asiri Health, played a pivotal role in designing and rolling out this framework. Her focus on process discipline, measurable outcomes, and staff engagement helped transform discharge from a routine function into a model of operational excellence.

However, the true power of this story lies in how an entire organization embraced the discipline of change—and how a culture of ownership was created at every level.

A Regional Benchmark in the Making

Today, as many South Asian hospitals continue to struggle with avoidable delays in patient discharge, Asiri Health stands out as a quiet but powerful example of what is possible when institutions treat process design as a form of patient care.

This isn’t just about speed. It’s about respect. Discharging a patient within a promised time frame is a reflection of how much a hospital values the time, dignity, and well-being of those it serves.

Other institutions across the region can look to this model as a blueprint—not for replication, but for inspiration. Every hospital can adapt this principle to their own context, using their own systems, teams, and tools.

Final Thoughts

In healthcare, we often celebrate breakthroughs in surgery, diagnostics, or technology. But sometimes, the most impactful changes are those that improve the simplest of moments.

Asiri Health’s one-hour discharge framework is one such change. It’s not just a win for operations—it’s a win for patients.

And that’s the kind of benchmark the South Asian healthcare system needs to embrace—not someday, but today.