St. Luke's Success Story

Getting Control of Supplies in Imaging Services

As in many hospital departments, Imaging Services recognized a problem with supplies – they were hard to find, they were stored in too many places, and it was sometimes difficult to know when we needed to order more.

To remedy this situation, a Lean project was initiated to coordinate supplies ordering and management. Leadership and front-line staff worked together to identify where supplies were stored, who was ordering supplies in each area, and how and how often ordering was done. The team created a kanban system, which identifies the locations, quantities, re-order points, as well as defining the ordering process. They also consolidated the common supplies into a central area, to minimize the duplication of both inventory and ordering. The system was tested and adjusted to ensure that the new inventory levels were correct for the supply usage.

The bottom line? From June 2007 to January 2008, the number of supply items held in Imaging Services decreased by over 8,000 items, a 38% decrease in the number of things purchased and stored. Ordering has been consolidated and standardized, so fewer associates are spending time ordering, and those that do, have a specific order quantity and order procedure to follow. And the number of outdated and lost supplies has been drastically reduced.

Swarming in the Lab

An ongoing issue faced by the Lab has been the early-morning collection of blood specimens. To meet the desire of physicians that the test results are posted on the patients' charts by 0700, there has been a mad scramble to get specimens collected, received, tested, and resulted.

To address the situation, the Lean team in the lab tested a technique called "swarming", which sends a roving group of phlebotomists to the nursing units, rather than one or two phlebotomists making the rounds. In addition, those in the "swarm" would send specimens to the lab more frequently, rather than collecting many specimens and sending them in a batch. The method was tried, tested, adjusted, and retested. Adjustments to staffing for those times was tested and adjusted. And some dramatic results were realized.

The amount of time, on average, from collection to result decreased by over 50%. The percentage of specimens resulted within 23 minutes of receipt in the lab in the early morning increased from 63% to 94%. All the changes resulted in smoother flow of specimens, a steadier pace of work, fewer missed collections, and a more reliable collection process.

Submitted by Dean Bliss, Director of Lean Improvements, St. Luke's Hospital, Cedar Rapids, IA 02/25/2008

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