Edenvale Regional Hospital shines at awards
"The initiative has reduced waiting times by 75% to an average of 17 minutes.”
Edenvale Regional Hospital’s pharmacy team was recently recognised for its innovation when members received two awards at the Public Service Innovation Awards.
The awards were held on November 29 at the OR Tambo Radisson Blu Hotel in Kempton Park.
The awards honours excellence through employee recognition.
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Edenvale Regional Hospital’s communication manager Thabile Mkhatshwa said in 2023 the hospital’s pharmacy launched and implemented an innovative queuing system. “It has shown remarkable results related to reducing waiting times.”
At the awards, the team placed first in the replication and adaptation of innovative solutions category. The team also won R30 000 towards sustaining the innovation.
Not resting on their laurels the hospital’s pharmacy team won in the innovator of the year category. This was the final and most coveted award of the evening. They received R80 000.
Mkhatshwa said the total accumulated winnings of R110 000 will be used for the implementation and sustaining of innovation to better service at the Edenvale Regional Hospital.
Launched last year, the initiative called Speedy Q is aimed at reducing waiting times at the pharmacy for better services for patients.
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“To date, the initiative has reduced waiting times by 75% to an average of 17 minutes,” said Mkhatshwa.
She explained that long waiting times have negative consequences for both patients and healthcare workers.
“There are many categories of patients who are unable to wait for a long time due to age, medical conditions, work obligations, school-going children, and mothers with infants,” she said.
Mkhatshwa said the pharmacy staff took it upon themselves to conduct a study to determine the waiting times at the pharmacy and utilise the data obtained to determine what the challenges are and how to overcome them for the benefit of the patients and pharmacy staff.
Once the study was conducted, a decision was made to re-engineer the workflow at the OPD pharmacy.
The new system was implemented on December 5, 2022, and officially launched as a success last year.
Mkhatshwa said the Speedy Q initiative was submitted as an abstract for presentation at the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) annual congress and was accepted as a poster presentation.
