Thomas:Eddie:
The process described is also known as TQI (Total Quality Improvement).
We have been utilizing this process for several years and the outcomes
have been tremendous. All of our processes have been improved and
continue to be improved. Part of the process is patient centered care or
patient care model. The goal of the system is to make the patient
comfortable about their stay by making every effort to eliminate as much
unnecessary patient/personnel contact as possible without compromising
patient care. To do this the RN's and other selected staff members started
performing functions outside their normal or traditional duties. This
included RN's drawing blood, Nurse Techs doing linen changing and walking
patients, taking vitals and doing bedside testing, (glucascan, urine
dipstix, etc.). It involves all floor staff from housekeeping to RN, and
only those people and staff directly involved with the patient. Yes even
Rns had to clean rooms and housekeeping had to pass trays.
Patient satisfaction goes up, turn-around-time for lab decreases, the
patient gets maximum service. A campaign of customer oriented training
was also involved. The main problem was teaching staff that the patient
was NOT their ONLY customer.
This is a system that has been place for some time now and it really
works. There have been several startups and halts for the program but we
keep coming back to it.
Bruce W. Jones
Organizational Development Specialist
Northwest Texas Healthcare Systems
Amarillo, Texas
--"Bruce Jones" <brucej@nwths.com>
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