INNOVATION CHALLENGE

This year, the Pharmacy Service Line held its First Annual Innovation Challenge. The purpose is to provide an opportunity for a fun department competition where individuals or teams can work together to cultivate creativity towards making improvements. We encouraged our team members to think of ideas such as:

• Do you have a recommendation for a different way of doing something that seems ineffcient or wasteful to you?

• Is there a new or expanded pharmacy service you feel would help our patients?

• Do we need a new type of equipment, automation, or software that would make us safer, more effcient, or improve job satisfaction?

• Is there something that frustrates you that you have an idea for fxing?

The selection criteria for the winners was based on:

• Alignment with the Pharmacy Services Strategic Plan

• Alignment with Lifespan Vision 2025

• Impact of the proposed innovation

• Ease of implementation

• Cost of implementation

There were 39 submissions from 55 team members and the level of engagement and breadth of innovative ideas was truly impressive. The winners and honorable mentions for this year’s innovation challenge were:

First Place

Dawn Feret, Lauren Piccoli, Christopher DeLucia, & Claudia Melo

Development of an Oncology Pharmacy Service Line

Implementation of a Psychiatric Second Place Timothy Amison and Andy Ok Inpatient Clinical Pharmacist

Third Place Sarah Albanese

Honorable Deborah Beringer

Mentions

Rob Brunault

Developing an Ambulatory Geriatric Clinic

Creation of a PBM for Employees

Dedicating a Pharmacy Resource on the Beacon Build Team

The Addition of RFID Tags to Rachel Fortin (Chris Nering) Compounded Medications

Laura McAuliffe

Developing a Post-Discharge Transitions of Care Pharmacy Service

Development of a Pharmacy Education

Kathleen Neves (Don McKaig) Team

Kelley Sanzen

Development of an ESRD Pharmacy Service

Development of an Ambulatory Eridania Teixeira (Laura McAuliffe) Anemia Clinic

Kendra Walsh (Steve Willis)

Innovation Challenge Updates

Creation of a Clinical Pharmacy Clerkship for Medical Students

Of the 39 submissions that were received, 18 were related to projects that were in progress within the service line. Nine projects were chosen to implement immediately. Two of those projects (“Optimization of Meds-to-Beds Signature Slips” and “Expansion of Compliance Packaging Offering”) were completed in FY22. Seven projects were started and work continues into FY23. An update on the three winners is below:

Development of an Oncology Pharmacy Service Line

The Oncology Pharmacy Service Line was implemented on January 8, 2023. This initiative will create ambulatory oncology infusion staffng model consistency to breed oncology drug therapy subject matter expertise and enhance employee retention.

Implementation of a Psychiatric Inpatient Clinical Pharmacist

A business plan was assembled, submitted, and approved to recruit a psychiatric inpatient clinical pharmacy specialist. A July 2023 implementation date is planned.

Developing an Ambulatory Geriatric Clinic

Geriatric clinic action plan has been drafted and business plan proposal will be tied to FY24 budget request.