(Juran Institute: Southbury, CT) -- The Juran Healthcare team had two improvement project presentations accepted for the WCBF 11th Annual Lean, Six Sigma, and Process Improvement in Healthcare Summit, which took place in New Orleans, May 15–18, 2012. The project presentations were an example of the Juran Institute’s work in a systemwide process-redesign initiative to prepare a children’s hospital for implementing an electronic health-record system.
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The process redesign and transformation was led by Mary Beth Edmond, executive vice president and senior nurse executive at Juran Healthcare. Tracey King, Ph.D., a registered nurse and Healthcare Practice Nurse Consultant, represented the Juran Healthcare team and facilitated the poster presentations at the summit.
Familiar with the issues, language, and protocols for hospitals, Juran Healthcare is skilled at involving physicians, leaders, staff, and other critical hospital personnel in all phases of implementing a process excellence system. The theme of the summit this year was “Healthcare Transformation to Achieve and Sustain Excellence—Culture, Leadership, and the Impact of Government-Initiated Reform.”
In a new era of rapidly advancing technology, children’s hospitals are challenged to infuse care delivery with a sense of urgency. To avoid implementing electronic versions of poorly designed processes, it is imperative to redesign and improve workflows prior to electronic health record (EHR) implementation. Aligning care with technology puts patients and families first.
The first accepted project focused on redesigning in-patient care coordination processes to facilitate patient flow, information and data flow, communication and documentation while efficiently utilizing current resources at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. The team collected the voice of the customer (VOC) by creating and launching three surveys aimed at clinical staff, nonclinical staff, and patients and families and then translated their data into measurable requirements. Best practices for key process functions were collected from literature reviews. Baseline data were also collected. The design team then developed a comprehensive design from admitting the patient to patient discharge, including implementation plans for 126 functions and features of their EHR software. The design team acts as key subject-matter experts in validating the build to ensure the final product meets design requirements. In addition, the design team will use a phased approach to launch pilots, analyze pilot results, and implement all design elements.
The second project focused on the pharmacy bus delivery route by Connecticut Children’s Medical Center’s Pharmacy and Nursing departments. As part of a process redesign effort in advance of an EHR, an interdisciplinary team of pharmacy and nursing staff at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut, sought to improve dispensation of medications to in-patient units, thereby providing more timely care, reducing waste, and preventing medication errors. One highlight of the results was the better regulation of medication deliveries, with specific scheduled times and delivery sequence.
Juran Institute’s Healthcare team works with hospitals and health systems to redesign patient care, support services, and administrative processes using robust, systematic methodologies that achieve results in as few as 60 to 120 days. Its results are well defined and ensure tightly controlled patient care processes that meet patient and customer expectations, produce high levels of quality and service outcomes, and increase effective capacity without the need for additional staff or facilities. Juran’s unique experience in clinical and business process excellence and quality assurance provides a systematic approach for transforming health care.
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