In a hospital-wide effort to reduce costs and improve efficiency, BWH officially launched the Bold Ideas, Big Savings program on Dec. 1. Through the program’s website, BWHers are encouraged to submit any and all cost-savings ideas they can come up with. If the idea is implemented, the individual or team that submitted the idea will be awarded a cash prize. Each idea is reviewed by the Bold Ideas, Big Savings committee to ensure it meets eligibility requirements of originality and feasibility.

BWHC President Betsy Nabel, MD, announced the first winners of the new program at Town Meeting earlier this week. The BWH Audiovisual (A/V) Services team was surprised with a $2,000 check for its cost savings idea that is set to save the Brigham about $60,000 in the next year.

The team’s idea, which began as a pilot this fall, is to provide furniture moving assistance internally for events held in Cabot Atrium and other spaces around BWH. Prior to the pilot, if any BWH department held an event requiring furniture removal or rearrangement, an outside vendor had to be hired at a cost of about $1,100 per event, even for tasks as simple as moving chairs from one side of the room to the other.

By moving furniture in-house, the A/V team has helped BWH increase efficiency and minimize disruptions to nearby areas since moving furniture can now be completed closer to the time of an event instead of several hours before. Additionally, the cost per event has decreased to about $100. BWH ergonomist Michelle Murphy helped the team learn how to safely move furniture and avoid injury.

“We saw departments spending money to do a job that our team would like to do, just because they didn’t know there are other alternatives,” said Peter Linck, manager of Office Services. “We met early on with Environmental Services, Security, Catering and Ergonomics and got their take on the best times to move and how the process should work.”

For the A/V team, thrifty thinking has paid off.

Do you have a cost savings idea? Submit it to the Bold Ideas, Big Savings program.