Productive Ward has been very productive ....

Boy it's been a busy few months.
The WOW teams have been working very hard making their work environments more efficeint. Rose Baker Wing have commenced wowing their compactor room and steri room which has been a huge job. The sorting and setting is completed and they are now working on their inventories and setting the stock levels for each room. The previously completed pan rooms and storage areas are achieving fantastic results with the compliance audits - congratualations to all of the staff. General Ward have sorted and set their panrooms, the IV pump room and the old HDU store room and are working on the steri room, drug room and HDU store room and are also achiveing good results - well done to all of the General Ward staff.
The HII teams have been very busy finalising the mandatory data sets and designing the display boards for the wards. They have had hand hygeine audit training and will soon comence regular audits with the help of the Infection Prevention and Control nurse. They have also been drafting the first set of Standard Operating Procedures for the WOW team rooms and equipment on their wards. The teams are consulting with the Quality and Safety unit for a standardised process for collecting the mandatory data daily for display on the boards and education for the staff will begin in the next couple of weeks and the teams will take over the responsibility for updating the boards daily.
The PSAG teams had their planning day on November 12th and had a very productive day working on the standardised section of the PSAG boards. They spent the day working with the Multidisciplinary teams in individual groups, discussing their needs and outlinng the expectations around the use of the board. The consultation sessions were very valuable in gaining a diffrent prespective and reslulted in some very positive chages to the first draft.
Stay productive H

The man behind WOW

Our WOW teams have been busy making your work environment more organised but they couldn't have done it without assistance. The man behind the scenes - following orders from some wacky women - is Garry Frazier. We have to thank Garry for his endless patience as the teams work with him as to where they want things moved, added or just gotten rid of. He has been tested to the limit as things change and new plans are drafted or another "fabulous" idea is thought of.
Today's job was to strip out shelving from the RBW steri room and replace it with Imprest Panelling and relocate the shelving to the compactor room. We have had him pulling out cupboards, putting up cupboards, removing and replacing and adding shelves, taking off doors, putting on doors - and he has done it all with a smile. Thanks heaps Garry your work is apprceiated.

Sustaining WOW ......

The WOW teams have been working hard getting their areas sorted, set, shined and standardised and we are now moving into the sustain phase of the module. Regular auditing has occured with a mix of results across both of the wards. The last audit results were really positive with General Ward showing improvement in three out of four areas and Rose Baker Wing achieving 100% two audits in a row in their pan rooms. Fantastic job everyone keep up the good work.

HII there ...........

June 20th saw the launch of the How It Is (HII)  module with a very busy planning day for the teams. They met with with the Quality Unit, Infection Prevention and Control Officer, Pharmacy, and the CEO. They talked about safety and risk and discussed ways to display the data and learned about how our VHIMS system works and the importance of reporting errors.

The teams wanting to ensure that there was a no blame culture maintained around VHIMS reporting designed this poster to be displayed on the wards, to remind staff that if an incident occured, it was important to report it to ensure that there were  systems were in place to prevent it from happening again.

Simple changes can mean big savings in time as well...

The General Ward WOW team audited the time it takes to set up an IV at the bedside.
They chose two rooms, one at each end of the ward and counted the number of steps it took to leave the office with the orders, collect the fluid from the drug room, the pump from the pump cupboard, the pole from  the store room and take the items to the patient's bedside.
They then relocated the pumps to the store room with the poles and repeated the excercise.

1 step = 0.75 seconds

Room 10 initial count = 117 steps = 1 min 28 seconds


Room 22 initial count = 98 steps = 1 min 14 seconds

Average steps = 107.5 = 1 mn 21 seconds.

Room 10 after pumps relocated = 70 steps = 53 seconds


Room 22 after pumps relocated = 90 steps = 1 min 8 seconds

Average steps = 80 steps = 1 min

Effectivly 21 seconds was saved with each IV set up excluding return to the office.

21 Seconds  seems insignificant until you calculate how many IV setups occur each day. The following calculations are based on 4 IV setups occuring per day and only by 1 nurse.

4 setups per day saves 1 minute 24 seconds

4 setups per day for 7 days (week) saves 9 minutes 48 seconds

4 setups per day for 28 days (month) saves 39 minutes 12 seconds

4 setups per day for 365 days (year) saves 8 hrs 31 minutes


Well done guys you have effectivly returned a whole shift back to direct patient care.

WOW initial cost savings

The initial work on 5Sing the pan room in Rose Baker Wing has paid off. Simply by reducing the amount of excess stock held in the room has made a saving of $213.37.

WOW - it's not just a tidy up!

The first of the foundation modules was launched on April 18th with the two Well Organised Ward (WOW) teams and their Nurse Unit Managers (NUMs)attending a planning day.
The teams conducted an assessment of their wards and prioritised the areas that required wowing first. They began by examining all of the ward storage and utility areas, taking photos as they went. The NUMs went with the team from the other ward to give a fresh perspective for the assessment.
Some problem areas were discovered on both wards and the teams were able to identify an are on each ward that was a priority. General Ward chose their equipment storage area and Rose Baker Wing chose their pan room.

Both areas chosen as the WOW pilot rooms were overcrowded and untidy on the assessment days.
Both teams couldn't wait to get started with the WOW process.