Work process redesign at Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Transfusion Service.
Work process redesign is an effective tool to assist laboratories in identifying areas for improvement. This article presents the experiences and results of Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Transfusion Service in undergoing a work process redesign project to reduce costs and increase growth potential. Opportunities for improvement were identified, and processes were redesigned to enhance efficiencies and increase workload capacity. Areas where opportunities for improvement were identified included work-flow, work process, personnel usage, task delegation, information transfer, physical layout, and communication. The thorough review and redesign of the work processes resulted in a greater demonstrated workload capacity of 381% for pretransfusion testing (antibody screens ABO/D typing, and immediate-spin crossmatches), using no additional FTEs.
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Ortho Diagnostic Systems Inc. (ODSI), Raritan, NJ, USA.
Tanley
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Steane
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Thomas
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Miers
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Sorenson
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D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000458:organization & administration*; D001771:Blood Banks / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D001803:Blood Transfusion; D002984:Clinical Laboratory Information Systems; D003625:Data Collection; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D007324:Institutional Management Teams; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013714:Tennessee; D016526:Workload