Client Context
Grady Hospital is the only level one trauma center in Atlanta, making it a critical part of the city’s health infrastructure. The Main Inpatient Pharmacy (MIP) stores and delivers medication for the entire hospital.
Project Objective
Grady Hospital is currently expanding, adding on 25% more patient beds and expect an equivalent increase in medication demand from the MIP. To keep up with this increase, the MIP has doubled their number of high-density medication storage units called carousels, and seek to use employee time more efficiently.
Design Strategy
The team's design strategy focused on reducing the number of stock-outs that occur in the Pharmacy, as well as making medication delivery times more consistent. To address stock-outs, the team standardized the medication storage levels, as well as reconfigured the locations where they are stored to minimize the amount of time needed to pick orders for patients. Additionally, the team re-organized the technicians' delivery schedules to minimize the amount of time spent waiting on elevators, giving them more time to do inventory control tasks.
Deliverables
The team had three deliverables for the client: An inventory map indicating which medications should be stored in which carousels, new minimum and maximum PAR levels to determine how much inventory should be stored at each location, and new technician delivery schedules with pros and cons for each.
Value and Impact
Through the deliverables, the team was able to save the MIP technicians a combined 180 minutes per day, which is equivalent to $27,375 of salary per year. These 180 minutes are enough time to restock the medications that stock-out during the day, meaning that restock-related stock-outs should be reduced to 0.
Project Information
Student Team
Marc Hammond
Kelley Tran
Wilson Alejandro
Destina Suren
Kiara Nursalim
Karen Lontoh
Samuel Jason Tedjasukmana
Anna Trively