The waste patrol at work, all 6000+ of them!

I love that people throughout the hospital are now involved in ferreting out waste. And I like it even better that they are calling out problems they see. And I like it even better when our managers treat these comments politely and respectfully, even when they sometimes have to explain why suggestions might not always be the best possible idea. Here's an email chain from today between one of our nurses, me, one of the vice presidents, and then another who had been copied. (I have changed the nurse's name for privacy purposes.)

Saturday, 9:14am
Hi Paul,
I was frustrated this morning when I came into the West Campus front entrance to find a new dispenser of complimentary umbrella bags for visitors. Why would we be purchasing something so unnecessary as this when we are being forced to give up [other things]? I really felt this was inappropriate.
-Mary

Saturday, 9:23am
News to me, Mary, although I could imagine that we do it to keep wet umbrellas from dripping all over our floors, which would then have to be cleaned up. I'll inquire around. Diana?
Paul

Saturday, 10:37am
Mary,
Thanks for your note-I know it is frustrating in these times to see something that looks like waste!

As you probably know, we've been doing a lot of work on employee safety through the Spirit initiatives. There have been literally hundreds of employee slips and falls in the last several months. Besides the pain of these incidents for the employee, slips and falls result in a major cost to the medical center in claims and lost productivity.

When the slips and falls committee, chaired by Jayne Sheehan and Michael Kennedy, investigated the root cause of these events, they discovered a significant number occur in lobbies when employees (and patients) slip on water that has dripped off of umbrellas. The umbrella bags are an inexpensive solution to help keep our employees and patients safe. (And eliminating just one claim from a bad fall will more than cover the cost of the bags!)

Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information. Thank you again for your note!
Diana

Saturday, 10:47am
Thanks, Diana and Mary,
Yes, Michael and I spent a lot of time investigating real time slips during inclement weather. It was clear the dripping umbrellas caused a wake of slips for not only our employees but our patients, particularly on the slick terrazzo floors and vct floors. We immediately looked into solutions to allow folks to keep their umbrellas, but leave a safe path behind them. Michael found a great solution, used in many other environments, and thought bringing it to the health care environment would serve the same purpose.

Important to note, is that the expense of all umbrella trees and the bags came to 1/10th of the cost of one employee injury where an employee may be then out for one or two days of leave. I felt it is well worth the minimal dollars to keep our staff who hurry a lot from campus to campus and our patients and their families safe.

Thank you, as always, for your thoughts and concerns during this fiscally challenging environment.
Jayne Sheehan

Saturday, 12:20pm
OK, thank you all for your responses. That certainly sounds reasonable and well thought out.
Mary

Caller-Outer of the Month Award #3

Today was the monthly meeting of our Board of Directors, along with another chance to present our Caller-Outer of the Month Award. It was given to Deborah Kravitz, seen here, who works in our Central Processing Division (CPD).

The purpose of the award is not to recognize someone who has solved a problem, but rather to recognize someone on the staff who has noticed a problem and called it out. The idea is that call-outs lead to root cause analyses that enable us to fix problems systematically rather than engaging in work-arounds. Our Board of Directors created the award as part of our BIDMC SPIRIT program to encourage people to call out problems to make our hospital a better place to work. (Beyond the recognition, the award is accompanied by two really good tickets to a Red Sox game.)

You may recall reading about the LEAN rapid improvement event we ran in the CPD recently. Well, Deborah got the whole thing started many months ago when she invited me for a tour of CPD, and I was able to see the terrible working conditions facing her and her colleagues as they try to carry out their job of sterilizing all of the surgical instruments used in the hospital's ORs. After some delay, Deborah nudged me again a few months later and pointed out that nothing had improved. So, we got to work on the problem and with the help of the CPD staff, are now on the path to a much healthier, safer, and efficient work environment.

By the way, Deborah is also a talented artist. Check out a sample of her work here.