(Harrington Institute Inc: Los Gatos, CA) -- The Harrington Best TQM Thesis Award was presented this year to Dr. Vinod Prabhu at the opening ceremony of the Quality Congress 2011 for his paper “Six Sigma Report on Reduction of Medication Delivery Turnaround Time for Newly Admitted In-Patients.”

Prabhu’s team chose to focus on the medication delivery process for newly admitted patients. Using the define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) model, the team was able to chart the process map, observe and note down the time it took for the medication to be delivered, analyze the various bottlenecks and delays, and make recommendations for improvement based on their study using statistical analysis.

Team members spent 72 days applying Six Sigma techniques at a leading hospital in Sharjah of the United Arab Emirates. They split the time into five segments, assigning each segment to one of the DMAIC principles, and treated the new patients as “customers.”

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