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Pharmacy Helps Patients Get Mammograms
The team worked with Imaging department staff to identify patients overdue for breast cancer screenings and to help fast-track their mammogram appointments.
- Preventive screenings are important to detect disease early, when treatment is most effective.
- Checking patients’ electronic medical records to identify those due for breast cancer screenings
Tracking Time Yields Results
Wait time for lab results fell by 56% after team members adjusted their workflow and schedules.
- Delivering timely results reduces patient anxiety and enables physicians to diagnose and treat patients sooner.
- Documenting and tracking the time to process tissue specimens
Teamwork Keeps Inventory in Check
This pharmacy team reduced the cost of expired medications by 90 percent after partnering with data specialists to identify and remove outdated drugs from the shelf.
- Keeping outdated medications in stock is a waste of money and a potential safety hazard if dispensed to patients.
- Unit-based team members worked with pharmacy analysts to identify slow moving medications and monitored the inventory to avoid over-stocking them.
Provide Care With Secondary Tubing
By using secondary tubing , which can be just as safe as primary tubing for many IV uses, this team saved a bunch of money.
- When not medically necessary, primary tubing is wasteful.
- Switching from primary tubing to secondary tubing, whenever appropriate
Reduce Missing Lab Orders
A little bit of extra coordination to cut down on missing order yielded a lot of savings for this team.
- Missing lab orders cost money and are frustrating for patients and employees alike.
- Assigning a point person to coordinate orders across departments
How to Improve Telemetry Monitoring
By tightening up processes and communication, this telemetry team improved the way it monitors patients.
- A patient deprived of oxygen for 4 to 6 minutes can suffer brain damage.
- Creating reminders for staff to check monitors
Blitz Bulldozes Backlogged Claims
The team saw a 50 percent increase in sessions processed when members focused their efforts as a team on a particular work queue.
- Delays in moving claims through the process impacts members, staff and KP’s bottom line.
- Team members work together on the same queue until the backlog decreases, instead of everyone working in individual queues
Telling a Story to Promote Cancer Screening
Team improved return rate of cancer-screening kits by identifying members and using a specialized script.
- Screening tests can find cancer early, when treatment works better.
- Sharing personal stories with patients about the importance of cancer screening
"Bladder Bundle" Protects Patient Safety
Team decreased the number of bladder infections—from nearly 20 infections per 1,000 catheter days down to near zero within six months.
- Urinary tract infections caused by catheters can lengthen hospital stays and complicate a patient’s recovery.
- Nurses using an evaluation checklist to determine whether the catheter was medically necessary and properly secured
Saving Money One Needle at a Time
Phlebotomists saved money after seeing that standard needles can be just as effective as a butterfly needles and costs less.
- Keeping costs down helps keep Kaiser Permanente affordable for members and patients
- Phlebotomists self-monitoring butterfly needle usage
Driving for More Efficient Routes
Morale among courier drivers improved when they started collaborating effectively to come up with more efficient routes.
- Teams members need to communicate well with each other in order to solve problems, improve performance and have a great workplace.
- Diversify communication methods
Speedy Slides Boost Service
On-time distribution of pathology slides increased 26 percent in two years, and People Pulse Work Unit Index score improved 30 percent.
- Physicians rely on analysis of the slides to diagnose and treat patients.
- The team used a visual display board that helped it track turnaround times.