I’m pleased and proud to share that our Baytown, Clear Lake, and Sugar Land hospitals each had a very successful first phase of our 5S initiative – SORT. As you may recall, 5S is a defined approach for establishing a place for everything and everything in its place and is a key component of our Performance Excellence business system.
I know many of you found some very interesting items while you were sorting your workspaces …we’ll announce the winners of our SORT phase Fun Finds contest soon. Now, it’s time for our hospital to move on to the STORE phase, where we’ll find a permanent place for the needed items we identified in SORT.
While going through the STORE phase, we want to ensure that we are putting shareable items in convenient central locations where they are accessible to all team members and placing frequently used items as close as possible to where they are needed. Click here for a helpful flyer.
I also want to urge you to think about safety and ergonomics as you find places to store. We want to minimize squatting, bending, and reaching and must eliminate trip and fall hazards. You can watch this brief video to learn more about the sorting process.
You’ll learn more about how your team will approach STORE from your manager or supervisor. Until then, I’d like to remind you that the 5S process will help us:
- Ensure a safe environment to provide and receive care
- Reduce time wasted looking for needed items or supplies
- Clear up much-needed space around the hospital
- Make it easier to spot when conditions aren’t right
- Motivate all of us to be tidy and maintain organized, clutter-free workspaces
5S also ties directly into our 2024 Strategic Plan, especially our goal to care for our patients effectively, efficiently and compassionately from admission to discharge. Our efforts support upcoming certification audits, including Magnet and DNV.
Let’s all work together to make the STORE phase a big success!
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