University of British Columbia

MEDICAL AND SURGICAL SUPPLY ROOM REDESIGN

Managing the healthcare supply chain is quite challenging as it is characterized by being vast and fragmented. Improvements in the supply chain processes can help increase efficiencies and improve safety. The senior leaders of a large academic and research hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia have been receiving complaints from the nursing staff signifying a problem with the supply system. A multidisciplinary task force was formed in December 2005 to study and redesign the current supply system in the hospital. This project studies the impact of redesigning the Medical and Surgical Supplies system in this particular hospital on the number of supplies� related clinical error as well as on perceived workload and the level of staff satisfaction with the working conditions. We used a prospective outcome evaluation study with one pretest and two posttest measurements of our outcomes of interest. Chi-square tests were used to examine differences in proportions of the outcomes between the pre and post intervention period. The study analysis indicate that the applied redesign model results in significant reduction in the supplies� related clinical errors by all nurses using a supply room in the hospital. In addition, it improved staff satisfaction as well as their percept about the workload within the supply room setting as reported by a random sample of the nurses.