International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care
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Int J Qual Health Care · Feb 2011
Exploring the relation between process design and efficiency in high-volume cataract pathways from a lean thinking perspective.
To compare process designs of three high-volume cataract pathways in a lean thinking framework and to explore how efficiency in terms of lead times, hospital visits and costs is related to process design. ⋯ The environmental context and operational focus primarily influenced process design of the cataract pathways. When pressed to further optimize their processes, hospitals can use these systematic benchmarking data to decrease the frequency of hospital visits, lead times and costs.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Feb 2011
Using an enhanced oral chemotherapy computerized provider order entry system to reduce prescribing errors and improve safety.
To reduce the probability of failure in the oral chemotherapy order, review and administration process and to reduce oral chemotherapy-related prescribing errors intercepted by clinical pharmacists prior to reaching the patient. ⋯ Prescribing oral chemotherapy is a failure mode with significant risk of inducing patient harm. CPOE is effective in reducing prescribing errors of oral chemotherapy and should be considered part of a fail-safe process to improve safety.