Date of Conferral

5-8-2025

Date of Award

May 2025

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Dr. Cara Krulewitch

Abstract

The gap in practice identified for my DNP capstone project is reducing medical supplies waste by managing healthcare resources in a clinic setting in the United States of America. The Organizational Change Process (OCP) Evaluation project assessed a tracking and exchange system to track the inventory of supplies used in different worksite clinics and their expiration dates. Knowledge of the expiration dates enabled exchange or shift to high-utilization areas before the supplies expired, thereby reducing waste, costs, and environmental pollution. The healthcare organization was a mix of ambulatory clinics and hospitals of varying scopes and sizes. The small clinics served employees and families of school districts or companies. The practitioners in these clinics worked alone and did everything, including rooming patients, drawing blood, performing all kinds of tests, and dispensing certain medications they prescribed. The clinicians diagnosed and treated simple to complex illnesses and initiated referrals to specialists when appropriate. Due to the number of patients seen in these clinics, some tests are not done very often but are supposed to be available for the employees and their families in case they need them. As a result of low utilization, some of the test kits or strips expired, and large quantities were discarded or sent to health missions overseas. This project evaluated a period 1 month prior and 1 month after OCP implementation. There was a 30%–60% reduction in wasted supplies following OCP implementation. The problem is important, and this project promotes social change because medical supply waste increases healthcare costs and environmental pollution.

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