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Affiliation: University of Pennsylvania IPD Program × Center for Healthcare Innovation and Transformation (CHTI)
Pilot Site: Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS)
Project Type: Health system design sprint, MVP iteration, and field research
PickIt is a hospital-internal digital platform designed to streamline how medical supplies are requested, tracked, and delivered. Developed in partnership with the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Transformation (CHTI) and piloted at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, the project tackles a $64M hospital supply chain challenge rooted in miscommunication, inefficiencies, and a 63% first-delivery error rate.
Through immersive field research, co-design with over 20 clinicians and storeroom staff, and pilot tests, our team built a system that bridges communication gaps between nurses and supply teams. The result is an integrated request-to-delivery platform with real-time inventory, ETA tracking, nickname-based search, and a centralized dispatcher interface—designed to reduce delays, improve accuracy, and support better patient care.
We conducted extensive research through 8 shadowing sessions across 3 hospitals, 4 co-design workshops with over 20 frontline staff, and synthesized 144+ pieces of feedback, supported by 5 pilot studies to map system-wide pain points and opportunities.
“Terrible experience. Difficult to reach storeroom by phone and the employees at the storeroom often don’t know the items we’re looking for.“
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“I have requested tegaderm with the CHG patch twice on a post it and they sent me two iodine sticks and one chloraprep stick after waiting for four hours”
“It should be a designated project to revamp supplies, it’s consistently affecting patient care. I.E. not having wound care supplies, not having CHG, not having meplexes. And we wonder why patients have hospital acquired issues.”
How might we unify the process in order to facilitate a more effective and efficientmovement of supplies in the hospital?
PickIt is an integrated app system to streamline the ordering process for healthcare and storeroom workers.
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Nurse: "I realize an item is needed for patient care, so I open the PickIt app. The home page makes it easy to find items I may need or frequent order. I can create nickname tag for specific items and find it through search the tag. In addition, I can order directly from the home page quickly. I just need this one thing, so I press order now"
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Nurse: "I don’t have to constantly keep an eye out or ask for my item because I can track it and contact pickers for help. When the item was delivered, I get a notification on my phone with #Lock number, so I know where I can go to pick it up and use it!"
Nurse: "If an item is already in the storeroom, then we don’t need to make another order and storeroom workers won’t have to field another call or make another trip. Instead, I can see where the item can be found and pick it up by myself."
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Storeroom Worker(Picker): "On my side, I’m working on my runsheet. The app tells me exactly what I need to get and where to put it, so I can get in and out quickly and without overthinking. I go make the delivery and snap a photo for confirmation, has all my orders and tasks organized by urgency and location so I can easily keep track of what and where things need to be."
Storeroom Worker: "Meanwhile, our dispatcher is receiving the orders and organizing them by urgency and location. I happen to be finishing a runsheet, so I accept the new order to continue to work."