Victoria Hospital making small changes with big effects

Stuckel was co-lead of an RPIW team tasked with improving communication and decreasing tray defects among the hospital’s food services.

Her team focused specifically on level four, which is the surgical unit.

In the surgical unit diets constantly change based on the scheduling of surgical procedures, making it difficult to coordinate feeding services.

Stuckel knew there was tray wastage, and procedures were being delayed because there had been errors in feeding patients.

Cost was also what drew them to level four.

During the month when Stuckel’s team investigated, 117 trays were unused during the lunch time. At a cost of $11.30 a tray, the hospital spent $1,322.10 on unused food trays for patients.

Discharged patients were also pinpointed as an area needing improvement.

“We weren’t communicating about their discharge times,” Stuckel said, “so a lot of food was making it to the floor as the patient was coming out the door.”

Once a tray has been delivered it can’t be reclaimed or used for a different patient, requiring it be thrown away.

Now the trays for discharges are pulled first thing in the morning. If the patient is still waiting to be discharged by the afternoon, and is in need of a meal, they receive a sandwich.

This is the first RPIW done in the nutritional department of Victoria Hospital. At first many did not believe there was so much waste.

“Of course there’s some resistance to change, but they had to trust the data,” Stuckel said.

“First they didn’t believe the data, they didn’t believe there was that much waste. Once we had the team in…and identifying things they started to buy into the process.”

While this is the first RPIW, Stuckel says it will be one of many for the department.

“This is just the start of the journey,” said Colleen Toye, who was tasked with improving the flow of safety and communication during the admission process of a patient presenting mental health issues.

Her team found the many departments involved in the admission process were acting independently of one another, and information wasn’t travelling as smoothly as it should have.

“The biggest barrier was making sure what happened in the emergency department flowed very seamlessly to the mental health inpatient unit.

“We weren’t looking at necessarily making it a quicker admission, but making it so that the patient and family knew what was happening, and what was going to be part of their journey.”

Toye is proud of what her team accomplished as part of their RPIW.

New standard practices are in place to help EDT and mental health inpatient teams work more closely together, and supervisors are now part of the admission loop to keep everything consistent.

Two new pamphlets have been created, one specifically for the client and one specifically for the family, to help them understand the process.

Toye says she feels great about what her team has accomplished.

“It was a long week but we had lots of support…to really help break down some barriers and get the flow moving.”

Three more RPIW’s are planned for the rest of the year.

With files from Alex Soloducha.

ssterritt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit

by Spencer Sterritt

Victoria Hospital making small changes with big effects

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