Recently, I heard about two employees who worked together to organize the unit and workflow in their unit for the betterment of them, their colleagues, and their patients.
In the post anesthesia care unit (PACU) at Union Square, Luvia Anderson and Marjorie Phillips brainstormed together on simple but powerful changes that would benefit their work and the work of their team.
They assessed the large equipment in the area and moved some of the lesser-used items like cribs to isolated spaces away from patients. This action alone created more room for patient beds. They also added bins to organize the paper flowing in and out of the unit so that at any moment a staff member would know exactly what to do with the medical record or form. For the nurses’ station, they removed a chair to make more room and got a remote control for the buzzer so that they and other team members wouldn’t need to interrupt work to let someone in. The process for assigning beds was previously a verbal process without tracking, and Luvia and Marjorie created a patient flow chart that maintains a record of bed assignments for the unit.
I’m so impressed by their creativity and action. Small changes add up, and I learn so much from our colleagues every day. Thank you for sharing your ideas, for taking initiative to make things better, and I hope you will keep them coming.