Workflow Analysis of a Healthcare Organization

Workflow is a term that is utilized to refer to processes or steps undertaken to complete a specific task (Mastrian & McGonigle, 2015). In a healthcare organization, this concept refers to initiatives undertaken to provide patient care services. This essentially means that workflow is crucial towards the achievement of organizational goals since it plays a critical role in the accomplishment of desired tasks/activities. Given its significance to realization of organizational objectives, organizations conduct workflow analysis to help identify workflow patterns that maximize effective resource utilization and reduce those that do not add value. Workflow analysis process is carried out using several tools to examine workflow processes and shed light on potential areas for removing waste. This paper provides a workflow analysis through flowcharts of medication administration in a community health center.

The organization I work for is a community health center that provides inpatient and outpatient primary care services. The Center provides comprehensive care services to different kinds of patients and has contributed to the development of the organization as an important organization in the community’s healthcare sector. As part of delivery of comprehensive primary care services, the community health center has established a clinical team comprising different healthcare professionals. Some members of the clinical team include primary care providers, nurses, medical assistants, and pharmacists. These various healthcare professionals work collaboratively and engage in care coordination to help in enhancing patient outcomes.
One of the most common events in this community health center is medication management, which incorporates various processes or tasks to help ensure that patients get the right medicine for their conditions. Medication management at this community health center is also geared towards enhancing patients’ compliance with medication in order to enhance their outcomes and satisfaction. In essence, medication management in this healthcare organization involves several stages as shown in Figure 1 below.

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As shown in the workflow flowchart above, the nurse medication management process in this organization comprises various stages that are carried out by various members of the clinical team. These stages include medication selection, ordering/prescribing, verification/dispensing, administration, education, and evaluation. The first step in the medication management process in the community health center is medication selection, which is carried out by several healthcare professionals i.e. physician, pharmacist, or nurse. Once the healthcare professional reviews the patient’s condition based on his/her medical information, he/she identifies and documents the most suitable medication for the condition. The information is documented in the electronic health records for easy retrieval and analysis by other members of the healthcare team. Based on the organization’s rules and policies, medication selection process should be based on clinical evidence, patient characteristics, cost-effectiveness, and best practice.

The second stage in the process is ordering/prescribing, which entails creating a medication order that incorporates the specific medicine for the patient and dosing recommendations depending on the patient and his/her clinical condition (Hughes & Blegen, 2008). This is carried out by a physician or nurse using electronic health records, which are utilized for managing a patient’s medical information. The information required to execute this step include patient characteristics, clinical conditions, and medication selection data. However, this stage can only be executed by a physician or registered/licensed practice nurse.
The third stage is verification or dispensing, which is carried out by a pharmacist at the community health center. The verification/dispensing, which involves the use of the EHR and manual dispensing of medication is carried out once prescription is received from the physician or registered nurse. The health center’s policies state that this stage can only be executed by pharmacists since they are professionally trained for this. Once verification and dispensing is conducted, the next step is administration by nurses, which is carried out once the other stages are executed. In this case, the nurses engage in preparations of medications like crushing pills through manual processes and based on medical knowledge.

This is followed by conducting patient education on effective medication use to help enhance medication compliance. Nurses work in collaboration with the patient and his/her family members or caretaker to promote effective medication use and compliance. The education is carried out upon positive medication and patient identification and requires following strict guidelines based on the organization’s policies. The final step in the process is evaluation, which involves monitoring patient compliance with medication regimen. Monitoring is conducted by the nurse and other clinicians either at the hospital or home. The determination of where to conduct monitoring is influenced by whether it’s an inpatient or outpatient situation. The clinicians then provide feedback on the patient’s condition and medication use, which is documented in the patient’s electronic medical record.

Given the significance of this process in the operations of the organization, the soundness of the workflow is evaluated through examining the rate of medication errors. In this case, the community health center utilizes process-evaluation tools, which have been found to be suitable metrics for lessening risks linked to medication administration system (Ghenadenik et al., 2012). Process-evaluation tool utilized at the hospital incorporate medical reports and patient feedback, which are collected and analyzed on a regular basis. The information helps in assessment of medication errors vis-à-vis patient outcome and satisfaction levels, which in turn helps in determining the soundness of the workflow. Process-evaluation tools are effective in measuring the soundness of the workflow since they provide vital information regarding the rate of medication errors and patient outcome/satisfaction levels at the community health center. Medication errors and patient outcome/satisfaction levels indicate how the workflow is contributing towards achievement of the organization’s goals/objectives. Additionally, this metric is sound in measuring the soundness of the workflow since it helps in risk-reduction in medication administration process.