Engineering Tactics Can Identify Broader Inefficiencies in Your Hospital

Hospital facilities directors also understand the importance of the following tactics used to pinpoint deficiencies or areas of improvement:

• Walking around the units to identify concerns (e.g., noticing a door that doesn't latch properly to a maternity unit)
• Observing staff member behaviors and developing enhancements as necessary (e.g., monitoring worker actions during a fire drill)
• Taking pictures to document conditions (e.g., photographing egress doors mistakenly marked as "no exit" and sending them to department managers)

Surgical recovery rooms are a prime area to look for excess efforts. Mayfield showed a quick video clip from a hospital that put all necessary supplies for patient care in the recovery room. Environmental services workers keep the supplies stocked so that nurses don't have to constantly leave the recovery room to get something.

"Whatever's outside that door—let's bring it in the room," Mayfield said. Rather than give individual nurses their own computer-on-wheels to track down at the start of each shift, the hospital parks a laptop permanently by each patient bed and lets nurses log onto whatever computer they need. Near the computers are lists of frequently called phone numbers, another convenient item to have close to bedside rather than out at the nurses' station.

"These are very simple tools that we can bring [to nurses]," Mayfield said.