Continuing our series, David Mangan, shown here, received this month's Caller-Outer of the Month Award from our Board of Directors.Sometimes a call-out is just a sign of initiative and caring. It might not result in a new process, but it might help confirm that something that has been put into place is working well. Such was the case here.
Dave is a pharmacist who helps nurses and other staff learn to use our sophisticated medication-delivery pumps. During a pump's testing phase, he will sometimes distribute a few pumps to people in training and then collect them before the full roll-out occurs.
He did this recently and found one pump was missing, having disappeared. Previously, finding one pump on the dozens of floors in the hospital would have taken forever, during which time it might have been misused or create other problems. Here, Dave immediately called Pam Dicapua in our clinical engineering department. That group had recently installed an RFID system and labeled hundreds of medication pumps. This particular lost pump was located within 37 minutes of Dave's query to Pam. It had traveled downstairs from one floor on our West Campus, across the street three blocks away, and then upstairs to a floor on our East Campus.
In short, good heads up thinking and initiative by Dave, and excellent follow-through by Pam at clinical engineering, using the latest systems put in place by her and her colleagues.
Dave says he has renamed RFID to mean "Really Finds Infusion Devices"!
I especially like these follow-up stories about new systems you all have put into place. It indicates outcomes are really improving, for all the effort that's being put in. This is the key, of course.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!
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