At Your Service

Faced with an overwhelming problem, the SDS team worked with nursing colleagues to create a win-win solution

Your phone won’t stop ringing. You and five other customer service representatives are drowning in 9,000 calls a month. Caregivers are calling for supplies for their patients—everything from catheters to razors and shaving cream. They’re just not getting the necessities in time. You’re frustrated. They’re frustrated. What would you do?

Chris Holmes and his supply distribution services (SDS) team found the answer. They partnered with colleagues throughout the hospital to fix the problem and create such superior service, they promoted people on their team, helped caregivers spend more time with patients, and won a national award from VHA, Inc. Here’s how:

Why is this happening?
To answer the question, the SDS team tracked the types of incoming calls and found many came from patient care units at LVH–Cedar Crest that ran out of supplies faster than they could be restocked. “So we changed our processes,” Holmes says. “Instead of taking 12 hours to deliver supplies, we now do it in three hours from the time we receive the order.”

How do we make it better?
Stocking the closets quicker wasn’t the only answer. The closets needed an overhaul, too. “It used to be that when we needed a bedpan for a patient, we’d have to maneuver around a table inside the closet just to reach them,” says technical partner Kathy Galicki of LVH–Cedar Crest’s 3A/interventional progressive coronary unit.

To ensure the best customer service, Holmes and his team went directly to caregivers like Galicki and asked how to make the closets easier to navigate. One answer: plastic, stackable bins that created nearly 40 percent more space for supplies.

Each item is also now bar-coded, so SDS can get updates when supplies run low. They also removed clutter and, at the request of caregivers, put the most urgently needed supplies in easy-to-reach locations. “Now we have the supplies our patients need at our fingertips,” Galicki says.

Who benefits?
“When you work together, everyone wins,” Holmes says. Thanks to the changes, the SDS phone doesn’t ring as often. “We worked with the materials management department and found ways to promote people who no longer had to answer phones,” Holmes says. “That ultimately saved SDS $82,000.” Patients also benefit, because caregivers are now devoting 88 more hours per month to bedside care and less time making phone calls.

How can we help our colleagues the same way?
You can improve your work area, too. “The better we serve each other, the better we serve our patients,” says emergency department director Courtney Vose, R.N. She’s part of a team devising better ways for departments to solve problems together. It’s called lateral service, and “you’ll be hearing more about it from your department head soon,” she says.

What’s the one thing you can do to improve patient satisfaction?
“It’s a question we should ask ourselves every day,” says organizational development consultant Jack Dunleavy.

Our most recent patient satisfaction scores show we’re at risk of slipping below the “good” (or threshold) goal in two key areas (see the Shared Success Report Card for more). “When we hit our goals, we’re eligible for a Shared Success bonus,” Dunleavy says. Here’s how you can help:

• Ask yourself, “What is the one act of kindness I can do to make the day of a patient, family member or colleague?”
• Be the first to say hello to a patient or visitor.
• Help a patient or family member find his or her destination.

• Follow the three steps of service—Make eye contact with patients and visitors, introduce yourself and your role, and ask, “Do you have any concerns or worries?” before you leave.
  

Serving Each Other
Now there’s a better way to hand off patients to a colleague. SBAR, a communication tool first used by the military, prompts caregivers to relay a patient’s Situation, Background and Assessment, as well as a Recommendation for care. It standardizes our communication throughout the network, creates better patient safety, and is a great example of the new lateral service program.

Nurses like Karen Uhler, R.N., of LVH–Muhlenberg’s 4T use SBAR during shift changes. It prompts her to give information about her patients to other nurses. “It keeps everyone on the same page and improves patient safety,” she says. SBAR also is used by nurses when talking to physicians on the telephone and within the Rapid Response Team.

Studies show tools like SBAR improve communication. “When communication is efficient,” Uhler says, “colleagues and patients are more satisfied.” SBAR is one of the ways nurses are transforming care at the bedside. Other initiatives: communication white boards at each patient’s bedside and follow-up calls to discharge patients.

ARTICLE TOOLS: