Pharmacy Dispensing Medication Error Reduction

Session
Potpourri

Author
Nusha Safabakhsh
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center - San Pedro

Description
This presentation introduces the journey that the pharmacy staff took to see for themselves areas of opportunity, the need for improvement and designing solutions by utilizing the appropriate tools. Also, it includes application of the tools and the impact to the performance metric.

Abstract
The quality improvement journey at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in San Pedro took a large step forward during the first half of the year when they were introduced to Lean and Six Sigma concepts as part of a departmental improvement effort for one of its internal pharmacies. This effort was focused on identifying the root causes for medication errors in pharmacy, remove barriers and improve workflow for more efficient medication dispensing process. The team utilized tools including but not limited to 5S, waste reduction, error proofing and process standardization. This project had 47% improvement in medication error rate at the time of project closure.