Application of Lean Six Sigma in Reduction of Medication Errors

This study focuses on reduction of medication errors by application of lean Six Sigma approach in Medication administration by nurses in a corporate chain hospital of India. It helped the hospital to understand the impact of dedicated Medication Nurse on the Medication administration error rate. the purpose of the research is to redesign the policy on medication administration i.e. introducing the concept of Medication nurse for the management of medication administration errors and depletion of interruptions faced in medication delivery in order to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and safety of care delivered to patients. as per the study done on medication administration, the medication error rate found was very high in a ward (mostly contributing were 31% of missed dose, 21% of wrong dose and 17% at wrong time) due to many interruptions and challenges faced by nurses during drug administration which in turn affecting the safety of care delivered to the patients and total medication delivery time taken by a general nurse was 9 minutes. By using the lean Six sigma methodology, it was observed rate of medication errors was decreased, the complexity of the work flow became simple and systematic, the work load on all nurses was decreased, and the average time for drug administering was decreased by 55% i.e. to 4 minutes in three months. thus, it helped in reducing mess up and complexity in the ward with better utilization of other nurses to perform other activities which are needed to be done at the same time and delivering best quality of patient care with high efficiency.