Bridgeport Hospital is a 501 bed hospital servicing the most populous city in Connecticut. The Department of Pharmacy is responsible for acute inpatient care, ambulatory care, as well as hospital based clinics. After pharmacy employee feedback and leadership observation, there seemed to be operational efficiencies that could be implemented. During an analysis of each shift, operations leadership discovered that many shifts had overlapping responsibilities and unclear delineation of duties. In order to clarify and streamline workflows, the department listed each task that was required of a pharmacy technician and set up multiple working meetings with pharmacy technicians. During these meetings, the group completed an activity by placing the tasks (laminated with Velcro backing), on posterboards representing each shift. The team proposed new responsibilities per shift, based upon a “theme” for the shift, with the idea to keep all tasks related to the “theme” assigned to the shift. For example, the Nonsterile Compounding shift completed a number of tasks that were related to returns, reports and other items. Under the new workflow, the Nonsterile Compounding Pharmacy Technician now only completes tasks related to completing nonsterile compounding.

We will continue to evaluate our workflow as a result of these changes. Empowering our front line team to make changes and provide feedback promotes trust, ownership, productivity and innovation. Employee engagement naturally leads to operational efficiencies in medication distribution. Our front line team has helped to ensure that the right person is doing the right task at the right time. This allows the Pharmacy Department to provide a consistent and high quality level of service to our nursing colleagues and patients.

Submitted by Bridgeport Hospital Pharmacy Operations Management team:

June Repasi

Marta Stueve Brunot

Jim Kennedy

Teresa Papstein