Post-its for Productivity

Productivity is the effectiveness of a productive effort. It is what you get out of what gets put in.

Time is often used to measure productivity. Less time does not always mean more productivity. Take turnover time. It is hypothesized less turnover time between surgical cases will mean less cost and more time to do more cases. If the nurse and surgical tech in the room rush through the prep work and forget many of the supplies needed to complete the case it takes longer to go out and get the supplies. It also costs you the confidence of the surgeon and exposes the patient to a higher risk of infection because of the constant opening and closing of the door. Both could cost you actual money and time in the future. More than an extra five minutes to turnover.

Instead it is better to have employees engage in an activity to increase productivity by reducing their steps. In a day and age of striving for 10,000 steps per day you want as few steps in-between patients as possible.

Have staff list the steps of a task one-by-one on post-it notes. Place the post-it notes on the wall. Find the redundancy and take the post-it note down.

Move the notes around. Eliminate walking the same path twice. Do not duplicate efforts.

Moving post-its is a much quicker trial and error process than taking the time to implement changes one-by-one and waiting to see the effect. It is more in your face. The wall is a visual point of reference for other staff to mimic. The wall provides a streamlined process and improved productivity.