Photo By Regena Kowitz | 190123-N-UJ980-043 SAN DIEGO (Jan. 23, 2019) Naval Health Clinic Hawaii (NHCH) Command...... read more read more
An initiative led by Naval Health Clinic Hawaii (NHCH) to improve the safety of delivering medication was awarded first place in Navy Medicine West’s (NMW) inaugural process improvement essay competition, Jan. 23.
The Captain Cheryl C. Ringer Memorial Award was established in 2018 to recognize and inspire personnel within NMW’s region to dream, build, and sustain continuous process improvement and high reliability innovations to enhance delivery of patient care, streamline administrative support processes, and improve the quality of all health care services.
The winning entry, “Lean Six Sigma Project on Weight-Based Prescribing Errors,” was selected from among 12 other submissions and led by NHCH’s Capt. Marlene Sanchez, chief medical officer, and Lt. Cmdr. Vince Deguzman, pharmacy department head.
"It is an honor to be the first to receive this important award,” said Deguzman. “This is a validation to the unrelenting commitment of the staff of Naval Health Clinic Hawaii to continuous process improvement and high reliability principles."
Sanchez echoed her colleague’s remarks about the clinic’s commitment to leaning in to positive change that achieves safer, high quality health care.
"This award exemplifies a dynamic and remarkable naval officer—Capt. Ringer—whose vision has led Navy Medicine and the team at NHCH on their performance improvement journey,” said Sanchez. “This is an incredible honor for us, one we share with the amazing staff at NHCH and we are humbled to be part of an extraordinary organization on the journey to high reliability."
Recognizing the potential for harm if medications whose dosage is based on weight were not calculated correctly, especially in children, Sanchez and Deguzman set out to reduce these types of errors.
Implementing a Lean Six Sigma rapid improvement event, they assembled a team of experts that included pediatricians, family medicine providers, biomedical staff, pharmacists, nurses, corpsmen, and administrators to define the problem and develop a solution.
The main solution focused on standardizing practices for prescribing pediatric prescriptions, to include using only kilograms for measuring patient weight, documenting weight and dosing information (milligram per kilogram) in the health records of pediatric patients, having the pharmacy only accept prescriptions written in the standardized format, and implementing a visual aid (a growth chart) to remind providers to use the right information when prescribing medications.
“Both Capt. Marlene Sanchez and Lt. Cmdr. Vince Deguzman have been phenomenal leaders on Naval Health Clinic's journey to high reliability,” said Capt. Kimberly Zuzelski, NHCH’s commanding officer. “While the specific project that was selected for the first Cheryl C. Ringer Memorial Award was completed prior to my arrival, they have really engaged the staff to inculcate the tenets of continuous process improvement. Their drive toward zero harm coupled with Lt. Cmdr. Deguzman's expertise as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt has absolutely been a winning combination.”
The award was inspired by its namesake, Capt. Cheryl Ringer, Medical Service Corps, who embodied leadership, professionalism, dedication, mentorship, and process improvement throughout her 22-year naval career. In her role as the NMW director for process improvement, she was pivotal in securing staffing and funding, and promoting continuous process improvement throughout the region.
“We needed to make a meaningful effort to honor Capt. Ringer and her career, her life’s work, that drove process improvement to make all of us better and our mission more effective,” said Rear Adm. Paul Pearigen, NMW commander and chief of the Navy Medical Corps. “What is particularly meaningful about this award is that it requires an essay. So much of what we do is wrapped up in a presentation, a graph, a pivot table—and they’re incredibly valuable for process improvement—but if we can’t turn it into a narrative, provide a cogent description of the ‘why’ and how we got there, those charts and graphs aren’t going to get us anywhere. We need to be able to clearly communicate the findings from our process improvement projects so that others can adopt them. Capt. Ringer was expert at weaving a compelling narrative to transfer what she knew to someone else, and this award is fittingly named in her honor.”
The inaugural Captain Cheryl R. Ringer Memorial Award was presented at regional headquarters during NMW’s annual board of governor’s meeting, a gathering of all the region’s commanding officers and command master chiefs, with staff, and friends and family of Capt. Ringer present.
“Capt. Ringer inspired us all to take on process improvement in our daily work and strive for health care quality excellence in all we do,” said Capt. Chris Cornelissen, regional chief medical officer for NMW. “This annual award is an opportunity to celebrate Capt. Ringer’s passion for high reliability and reflect on how each of us can work as a catalyst for change, drive process improvement and innovation, and contribute to mission success at our commands.”
Navy Medicine West leads (NMW) Navy Medicine’s Western Pacific health care system and global research and development enterprise. Throughout the region, NMW provides medical care to nearly 700,000 beneficiaries across 10 naval hospitals, two dental battalions, and 51 branch clinics located throughout the West Coast of the U.S., Asia, and the Pacific. Globally, NMW also has oversight of eight research laboratories across the U.S. and overseas that deliver high-value, high-impact research products to support and protect the health and readiness of service members.
| Date Taken: | 01.23.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 01.29.2019 20:54 |
| Story ID: | 308717 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO , CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 219 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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