The Situation
Mission Hospital is committed to providing a safe environment focused on quality and compassionate care. Unfortunately, substantial inefficiencies relating to movable medical equipment and its management meant that staff had less time to spend with patients. Equipment shrinkage exceeded $150,000 annually, and the increasing rental costs were excessive. Staff from multiple departments, including Nursing, BioMed and Equipment Management, were forced to spend a great deal of time searching for equipment. This extensive searching took up valuable time, causing the staff to hoard equipment, which contributed to the problem. Mission had no reliable way to determine equipment utilization and purchasing needs.
The Solution
In order to solve these equipment distribution and maintenance problems, Mission selected CenTrak’s Second Generation Infrared (Gen2IR™) and Active-RFID system to track the location, cleaning, and maintenance of its movable medical equipment, resulting in significant savings for the hospital. VIZZIA Technologies deployed the system and configured its own software to deliver the medical asset management solution.
The Benefits
Once Mission made the switch, the results were exactly what they were looking for. The rate of lost or stolen devices dropped from 13.8% to 0%, and the hospital saw an annual savings of $200,000 as a result. Nurse satisfaction also increased more than 50% relative to equipment availability. Healthcare providers no longer had a need to hoard equipment, since it was easily located and readily available, leading to a significant increase in equipment utilization.
