Streamlined Transport Process Reduces Average Trip Time by 13%

Challenge

A 250-bed facility in Northern Ohio was looking to streamline its manual patient transport process. The previous process included multiple phone calls, paper record keeping of daily workload and summary statistics from each transaction. There were also a total of 5 dispatchers and 26 transporters at this 250-bed facility. Along with the hassle of manual dispatch and tabulation of activity, the system was very inefficient in that transporters had to make an “empty” trip back to the Transport department for the next assignment. This added additional time to each transport request, ultimately affecting the time a patient had to wait for transportation.

Solution

To help streamline the entire transport process, the organization implemented TransportTracking™ (formerly PatientTrackingVIP®), a proven workflow automation solution employing the hospital’s existing telephone system. Capitalizing on the intelligent Interactive Voice Response (iIVR™) solution at the core of TransportTracking™, the transport process is now fully automated by placing and receiving transport requests via the telephone and pagers. Instead of calling a human dispatcher, a requester makes a brief telephone transaction into the central telephone system and a transporter is automatically dispatched with the request. Once the transporter accepts the job (again via a brief telephone transaction from any house phone), the system records that the job is in progress. If any delays occur, a supervisor is automatically alerted to help address any issues or “bottlenecks” that might have arisen. Once the job request is completed, the transporter again calls the system to complete the trip and will then automatically receive their next assignment.

Results

With TransportTracking™, the hospital achieved tremendous gains in efficiency, and savings with staff reallocation or reductions. The Transport Department was able to reallocate 3 full-time equivalents (FTEs), and reduce overall staffing by 3 FTEs. Additionally, the average trip time went from an average of 23 minutes per trip, to under 20 minutes. This enabled an increase in number of trips per month from 5,000 to 6,000 with less staff and even allowed them to add on additional transport responsibilities from other departments.

Source – TeleTracking Technologies Case Study.

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As part of an organizational culture that continually fosters change, we are confident with the data provided by TeleTracking™, knowledge of recent successes (and failures), and continued executive support that we will continue to identify and implement future initiatives to improve patient progression through the health system and enhance operational revenue.

Denise Pruitt, MT (ASCP), MPH
Administrative Director, Patient Progression

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