Samsung Changwon Hospital Wins Grand Prize at Korea Hospital Association KHC Awards

Employee Voluntary Participation Innovation Project
Improvement Activities for Inconvenient Medical Consumables

Sungkyunkwan University Samsung Changwon Hospital received the Grand Prize at the 14th KHC (Korea Healthcare Congress) 2023 Hospital Innovation Case Competition hosted by the Korea Hospital Association.

Team Leader Im Kyung-jun (right) of the Communication Team at Samsung Changwon Hospital, Yoon Dong-seop, President of the Korea Hospital Association.

Since 2016, Samsung Changwon Hospital has been operating the 'Blue Diamond' (hereafter BD) project, where employees voluntarily participate to improve hospital processes. BD consists of teams of Samsung Changwon Hospital employees with five missions for the hospital's future, with about 10 members per team, totaling five teams and over 50 members working for one year.

Each team focuses on themes such as ▲Communication and Organizational Culture (Neverland) ▲Patient-Centered Service Design (Golden Princess) ▲Clinical System Improvement (Nimitz) ▲Marketing and Network (Stiletto) ▲Future Strategy and Medical Product Improvement (Pirates).

The innovation case selected in this competition was from the Pirates team, which focused on identifying and improving inconveniently used products in medical settings. The video case depicted the journey of BD colleagues solving issues one by one, from improving IV poles that patients found uncomfortable to stories from nursing staff that even product manufacturers were unaware of. Members of the Stiletto team participated in the production, collaborating with students from the Department of Cultural Contents at Gyeongnam National University.

The project, ongoing since 2016, has continued steadily except for the year 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The cumulative number of employees who have voluntarily participated annually with professors has reached about 200. The sense of accomplishment from seeing employees' ideas reflected in the field has been the driving force behind the continuation of the project.

At the awards ceremony, BD helmsman Im Kyung-jun said, “Because this project was participated in with pure loyalty by the employees, it was able to lead to good results. Going forward, BD will continue to respect colleagues' ideas and create a new organizational culture model in healthcare that innovates the hospital.”