Hey Northgate! It’s been a great experience working on the design team so far and attempting to improve many of the problematic processes around the clinic. That being said, I am curious how things have been going on the test team’s end of things? Any comments or suggestions?

Problem: When patient is not in clinic, provider prescribes medication needing a hard copy when patient arrives at pharmacy window, the script is not there.

Process Mapping & Observations:  Design team mapped out the process from the time the prescription was ordered, through it’s printing, signing, and transport to pharmacy.  Design team viewed the carrying of the unsigned prescription from the printer to the ordering provider’s office inbox and then the leaving of the script in that inbox as problematic. This step seemed to add little value and seemed to lead to further delays.

Types of Wastes Identified in Observations: complexity, corrections, inventory, waiting time, searching time, transportation.

Proposed Solution: Medical assistants ensure the hardcopy is signed without leaving it in the provider’s office inbox.

Results:  Proposed solution tested for one week, during which time the number of occasions in which a patient was stuck at the pharmacy window waiting for a signed hardcopy dropped off noticeably.  Because this experiment resulted in a greater than 50% improvement over the prior procedure, the solution was adopted as a new standard procedure. 

Lesson Learned:  It was important not to mandate how the medical assistant got the signature (eg, at printer, posted on exam door, etc.)  as variation at this level seemed valuable.