TekLabs’ product suite for hospital logistics

Tek Laboratories Ltd. Oy Keilaranta 16, FIN-02150 Espoo, Finland

www.teklabs.com officefinland@teklabs.com

About the product suite in brief

TekLabs’ product suite for hospital logistics includes ordering and dispatching tools for patient and material transfers. In addition to this the suite also includes a powerful reporting tool. With the product suite hospitals can optimize patient and material logistics and save vast amounts of money especially in transfers of patients between geographically scattered units and other hospitals. The ease of use of the products has also been noted to have a positive influence on job satisfaction. The product suite has been developed in cooperation with major Finnish hospitals, is deployed in three university hospitals and is seen as the de facto standard for hospital logistics management in Finland. The products are available through licensing and as a hosted service (SaaS).

Product suite for hospital logistics

By using low cost service providers and utilizing return transportations hospitals can significantly lower the transfer costs of patients between geographically scattered units and other hospitals. External Patient Transportation (EPT) assists hospital personnel in organizing the most effective transportation for each patient and frees up personnel for other tasks.

External Patient Transportation (EPT)

1. The medical staff creates an order for patient transfer

2. Order is sent to the dispatcher

3. The dispatcher selects the best (cheapest, closest, …) transportation provider

Supported networks 4. Request is sent directly

to vehicle

5. Driver can accept or reject order

6. The medical staff gets indication of the progress

Every day a huge number of patients are moved around in hospitals from one department to another. Making sure each patient in the right place at the right time is an art. Internal Patient Transportation (IPT) helps the hospital personnel in this task. IPT is accessible on PC and smartphones. Both WLAN and GSM networks are supported. The workflow for an order can be built into the system.

Internal Patient Transportation (IPT)

1. The medical staff creates an order for patient transfer

2. Order is sent to the suite server

3. The suite server releases tasks based on pre-defined rules

Access over 4. Orders become visible

on transportation personnel’s PDAs/smartphones

5. Each member of the transportation personnel pick the task they wish to do

6. The medical staff gets indication of the progress

In hospitals there is a need to transfer a lot of material from one place to another. Examples are patient documentation, laboratory samples, instruments and assistive devices. For smooth hospital operations everything needs to be in the right place at the right time. Material Transportation (MT) assists the hospital personnel in this task. MT works on PC, smartphones and rugged logistic PDAs. Both WLAN and GSM networks are supported.

Material Transportation (MT)

1. The medical staff and administrators create transportation tasks

2. Order is stored on the suite server

3. The suite server releases tasks based on pre-defined rules

Access over 4. Orders become visible

on transportation personnel’s PDAs/smartphones

5. Each member of the transportation personnel pick the task they wish to do

6. The medical staff gets indication of the progress

Fleet Monitoring (FM) is an extension to External Patient Transportation (EPT). With FM dispatchers are able to track ambulances and other vehicles using TETRA devices on top of a map. This assists the dispatcher to choose the closest suitable vehicle for a task. On the FM map view vehicles and their TETRA statuses are shown.

Fleet Monitoring (FM)

Before assigning an order the dispatcher can check the location of the vehicles

The TETRA units in vehicles report their location and status

With Reporting you are able to extract extensive reports on all orders and transfers done with any of the products within the suite. Reporting allows you to create and store your own reporting templates in addition to the pre-defined reports. OLAP reporting makes sure you have the flexibility to drill deep into the information in real-time. The create reports can be exported to Microsoft Excel for further processing.

Reporting

Screenshots – EPT new order

External order creation form With the external order creation form the patient departments can create new order requests for transfer of patients between hospitals. The information entered in this form is transferred to the driver who performs the order. Based on the information EPT will assist the dispatcher to select the correct car type so that e.g. a litter taxi is used when appropriate instead of occupying an ambulance. Order creator also inserts a desired time for the order to be carried out.

Screenshots – EPT order list

Order list used by dispatcher In the order list the dispatcher is able to see the statuses of the orders. By effective filtering and sorting the dispatcher can customize the view. On the left side the vehicle list shows the statuses of the vehicles available for dispatching.

Screenshots – EPT order assignment

Order assignment view The dispatcher can either create a new order or assign an existing order to a vehicle. EPT assists the dispatcher in finding the best option by: - Limiting selectable vehicles

based on patient type - Allowing dispatcher to

select the cheapest transport provider for the given order

- Displaying vehicles TETRA statuses

- Allowing dispatcher to see the location of cars on the FM view (see next page)

Once dispatcher assigns an order to a vehicle the order goes out either over the GSM or TETRA network.

Screenshots – Fleet Monitoring (FM)

Vehicle location view On the vehicle location view the dispatcher can check the location of the vehicles on top of a map together with their TETRA statuses. With this information the dispatcher can select the closest suitable vehicle in case there is a need to do this from timing perspective.

Screenshots – IPT new order

Internal order creation view With the internal order creation form the patient departments can create new order requests for transfer of patients between locations inside the hospital. The information entered in this form is transferred to the logistics personnel. Order creator also inserts a time by which the order should be carried out.

Screenshots – IPT mobile view

Mobile internal task view With the mobile internal order view the personnel transporting patients between departments can see all open orders and pick the tasks to perform. Also own ongoing tasks and finished tasks are shown.

Screenshots – MT order view

Material order creation view With the Material order creation view the patient departments can create order requests from the same familiar view as they create patient orders.

Screenshots – User activity chart

User activity chart The system records all user activity, e.g. login and logout. In the user activity chart this is laid out on top of clock times, which has been found to be useful for follow-up purposes.

Screenshots – Carrier activity chart

Carrier activity chart The Carrier activity chart displays the orders performed by a specific carrier company / vehicle laid out on top of clock times. The chart can be used for follow-up and for estimating when a specific vehicle will be available for a new order.

Screenshots – User activity chart

Dynamic reporting view In the Dynamic reporting view information on orders can be analyzed pre-defined reports or by creating dynamic reports using OLAP. The report can be exported to Excel in case user wants do further processing and sharing with others.

Customer cases – Hospital district of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS)

HUS deployed the first product from the suite in 2005 and is today using the complete suite in their daily operation. The combined amount of transfers is close to 0.5M annually. HUS uses Fleet Monitoring (FM) to track the locations of their ambulances on a map and generate reports of all transfers with Reporting. The efficiency that the logistics product suite brings already to dispatching HUS can now manage all their orders without hiring additional 2-3 people, not to mention the cost savings from optimizing the use of their ambulance fleet and freeing up care taking personnel’s time. Through structural changes in the Finnish health care area HUS is looking to double the amount of external patient transportation orders and use EPT for this.

HUS dispatching center for external transportations

HUS material transportation in action

Checking the order status

Customer cases – Pirkanmaa hospital district (PSHP)

Today PSHP is using the product suite for managing external patient transportation, material transportation and reporting. Amount of annual transportation tasks is around 60.000. By using the EPT, MT and Reporting PSHP is according to their own estimations saving annually about 200.000€ including - less people needed for dispatching - optimized size of logistics personnel - optimization of external transportation - time saved by care taking personnel when creating orders

With Reporting the internal logistics department was able to analyze and productize their offering and create SLAs with all departments. Through reporting the logistics department can follow-up that they comply with the agreed SLAs. They were also able to introduce efficiency incentives for the logistics personnel. At the same time the logistic personnel’s work motivation has gone up as everyone now has more influence on the tasks they perform and their own incentive payout.

Investment payback time: 1,5 years