08 Jan 2012
By: CAI HAOXIANG
Nurses in Singapore General Hospital’s (SGH) Ward 73 once faced the daily annoyance of dealing with inaccurate meal orders from patients.
Not any more. An idea that cost nothing to implement has allowed errors to be corrected on the spot and reduced time spent taking meal orders.
This won the first prize in the hospital’s annual ideas exchange on Friday, and will be implemented throughout the entire hospital in the future.
Senior staff nurse Lee Chee Woei, whose team of seven nurses developed and implemented the idea last April, said meal orders used to be taken by hand and transferred to a computer outside the ward.
But errors often occurred when patients on low-fat or low-salt diets chose normal meals instead.
“We would ask the patient to choose again, and then there would be a lot of to-and-fro. We were very stressed because this happened day in, day out,” said Ms Lee.
Last March, a team member noticed staff at fast-food chain McDonald’s dealing with long queues by using a hand-held device to take orders.
“We were very excited, and discussed how to implement something similar,” said Ms Lee.
The team hit on the idea of using the computers-on-wheels that doctors at the hospital had already been using for a year to manage patients and order medications.
The nurses also developed a menu with pictures to guide patients in their meal choices. The project cut down the time spent ordering food for 16 patients from 75 minutes to 30 minutes.
Friday’s event, dubbed the “marketplace”, showcased 20 projects by nurses to improve various aspects of their work. At SGH, nurses form teams to discuss these “quality improvement” projects during their spare time, and can rope in doctors or engineers from other departments to help.
National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) deputy secretary-general Ong Ye Kung, who was among a group of 80 union leaders at the event, said he was impressed by how SGH staff worked together. “That is something very precious. Everybody can play a part to make your job better and serve your customer better,” he said.
Said SGH senior nurse manager Diana Chia, who is also president of NTUC: “In the past, I used to believe that innovation comes from something brand-new. Coming to this marketplace, you know that... it’s about combining ideas and making things better for yourself.”
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