Help with Quality Improvement

[EmxoRenee]

Hello,

My group in nursing school is doing a project on Quality Improvement involving all of the medical supplies nurse's accidentally waste by placing them in their pockets, and then forgetting and taking them home at the end of the day. We are making a poster for our presentation, and need some pictures to put on it. If any of you currently work in hospitals or LTC, could you perhaps get some pictures of all of the nursing supplies, such as tape, alcohol swabs, gauze, saline flushes, etc in your scrubs pockets or lying on the table in the break room and post them or email them to me?

We've tried google image searches and can't seem to find this kind of picture! I appreciate any help, and any pictures sent, you will remain completely anonymous!

Thank you :)

[amoLucia]

You're almost asking staff to self-incriminate themselves.

As a CNA, you have peers and a facility with which you can check. You'll prob have a better response than asking nurses to take pix. (Not likely!)

I suggest you just count all the cans of shave crème, deodorants, multiple hairbrushes, and shampoo bottles in the shower room. Then check for the HIDDEN piles of stashed linens, particularly towels, packs of swipes, and blue pad chux in pt room closets.

Just take a count and multiply by a price and make all kind of graphs and pie-charts for you presentation. Just FYI, taking pix may not be a good idea regardless of how anonymous you try to be. Even for your own facilities. You absolutely need to avoid any possible identifiers.

Seriously, it is an innovative IDEA. You really DO have a good idea re prevention of waste which would most certainly improve availability of supplies when needed. And avoidance of waste should improve facility cost containment.

But that truly will not make much of an impact for pts or for improved staffing. Admin/mgt really won't care about a 'drop in the bucket'.

Good luck on your project- it's a good one!

[EmxoRenee]

Thanks for your response! I'm actually not currently working. I didn't realize it would be incriminating anyone to take a picture of extra supplies people left laying on a table in the break room or had in their Scrubs pocket. I certainly don't want anyone to get in trouble! We have a lot of graphs and charts and such, so we were just looking for something a bit more visual, like pictures, to add to our board. But if it will potentially get anyone in trouble, I can just go in the practice nursing lab at school and lay some supplies out there and take a picture!

Thank you again for taking the time to respond And for your valuable input and feedback! It's very appreciated :)

[203bravo, MSN, APRN]

Could you borrow these supplies from the practice lab at school to stage these pics?

[EmxoRenee]

Thank you for responding! Yes, I will use supplies from our practice lab to set up a picture. After someone above mentioned that taking a photo at work could potentially get nurses in trouble, I think the best option would be to just stage a picture. I don't want anyone to get in trouble!

Thank you for the idea! :)

[KrCmommy522, BSN, RN]

Here's some stuff I found that might help:

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What Hospitals Waste — ProPublica

Waste Is The Norm In US Hospitals, Nursing Homes | Wisconsin Public Radio

Partners for World Health Sends Supplies Abroad -- Borgen

Leftover Medical Supplies Put To Use Abroad : NPR

TOH saves thousands of dollars by reducing wasted supplies | The Ottawa Hospital

Nurse opens local chapter of group that sends medical supplies with tourists - Nova Scotia - CBC News

Partners For World Health

Dr. Wes: Eliminating Waste in Health Care

Didn't read all the articles, just skimmed them to see if they were related to your topic. Just from a quick google search of "nursing wasted supplies" and looking through the images. You might have already found these! But hope it helps anyways!!

Great topic! Good luck!