Achieving Silver Awards @ Changi General Hospital QC In-House Forum 2004

Spurred on by the previous year’s success and the Continuous Improvement philosophy at UMC SM, ‘The Sparks’ and ‘The Sparkling’ teams from CGH Housekeeping and Linen participated at the CGH, ‘Just Do It Quality Circle’ competition on 8 Nov 2004 at CGH Auditorium. They were among the 15 teams at the competition. Each team gave a 4-minute presentation followed by Q&A by the judges. By participating in the Quality Circle, the teams have already met the requirements of JCIA (Joint Commission International Accreditation), which requires participants to use the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check & Act) cycle to assess on improvements of care of patients.

Cotton Stoppers

The ‘Sparks’ team presented a skit featuring a frustrated patient complaining about the current plastic stoppers on the pyjamas pants, which had gone out of shape and made it difficult for him to release the draw strings whenever he wanted to urinate.  Such a delay could result in accidents if patients need to relief themselves urgently!

The solution was to design a new kind of stopper made from cotton material. The cotton stoppers would be more resistant to wear and tear. In addition, it would not go out of shape and allows the patient to release their pants easily and quickly.

Members of ‘The Sparks’: Jane Chua, Steven Tan, & Choong Yat Poh with their Silver Award project: ‘Cotton Stoppers’

In fact, other hospitals were also facing the same problem but to date no solutions have been found.  One of the judges was so impressed by this innovative solution that she even suggested selling the idea to the other hospitals!

Members of ‘The Sparkling’: Seribut, Joyce, Nancy & Zul Rashid with their project, ‘Linen Bag’.

The ‘Sparkling’ presented a skit of how the plastic linen bags had posed problems of tearing or getting stuck in the linen chute. Each time the linen bag tears the person at the linen bay has to re-bag the soiled linen.  This results in wastage of plastic linen bags, time and unnecessary exposure to contamination.

The solution was conceived to use cotton linen bags with a lid. The lid would also meet the JCIA requirements. The cotton bags are strong and do not tear while going down the linen chute. Furthermore the bags can be washed and re-used!

Congratulations to our 2 teams who were part of the 10 teams who were awarded ‘Silver awards’. In the eyes of Mr Udairam, CGH CEO, everyone was a WINNER: “Although some were gold, silver & bronze … each one of them was a winner in its own right.”