Date of Award

8-6-2017

Degree Name

Nursing (M.S.N.)

Department

College of Nursing

First Advisor

Rebecca Davis

Second Advisor

Sylvia Simons

Abstract

In the combined cardiac catheterization and interventional radiology unit of an urban Midwestern hospital, having supplies when and where they are needed is necessary for efficiently and safely completing a wide variety of procedures. Due to the complexity of the supply chain process in this setting, baseline data collection revealed many missing supplies, overnight shipments, and expired items. In this project, the MSN student sought to determine whether a Clinical Nurse Leader driven Lean Six Sigma based approach to supply chain interventions in the interventional procedures setting would improve outcomes and lead to financial savings by decreasing waste and variation. The DMAIC model was used as a framework for the project and a three phase Kaizen improvement project was developed with the final stage being implementation of a two-bin (kanban) supply storage and ordering system. This paper will provide an introduction to the clinical microsytem, a literature review of evidence regarding the proposed intervention, a description of the DMAIC framework, an outline of the clinical protocol, and a final evaluation of its implementation. While installation of the two-bin system is currently awaiting funding approval, analysis of changes made in preparation thus far include a decrease in the number of items missing each morning, a decrease in number of overnight shipments, and a decrease in expired items. Significant financial savings have also been achieved, which will be discussed. Moving forward, Lean Six Sigma is a promising approach to attaining further sustainable improvements in the supply process. The Clinical Nurse Leader is in an optimal position to combine knowledge of healthcare processes and team management skills to continue implementation of the proposed intervention.

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