Becker's Hospital Review

Executive Briefing: Healthcare Transportation Done well, healthcare transportation can play a pivotal role in helping disparate organizations successfully integrate into a singular, integrated operating system. Importantly, unifying transportation is not only an end in of itself but also a means to create other opportunities for operational standardization, according to Mr. Crampton. "By leveraging a robust transportation network, systems can move to central labs, central print shops, central distribution and so on – all of which brings greater uniformity to how the system works." Culture of integration. Beyond standardizing transportation processes across an organization, implementing a system-wide transportation system can also promote a culture of integration throughout the system's hospitals, clinics and administrative offices. Before integration became a growing trend in healthcare, there was a culture of facility-based orientation, not system-based orientation, according to Mr. Crampton, and that culture has to change for integration to be successful. "Transportation can be a part of cultural change," he explains. 39 single source for healthcare transportation can give systems added value through long-term cost savings. At Advocate, Mr. Lubotsky has seen first-hand the savings that unifying healthcare transportation can deliver. Advocate has used MedSpeed for years, and prior to 2012 was saving on a recurring basis about $360,000 each year on transportation from eliminating inefficiencies and standardizing deliveries through MedSpeed's services. Increased healthcare transportation integration can lead to even greater savings, though. Since 2012, Advocate has deliveries dropped off at a central logistics center, instead of individual locations, and MedSpeed delivers the supplies to the various sites from there. "MedSpeed was going out to the clinics anyway, and we can now deliver supplies through MedSpeed for a lot less money," Mr. Lubotsky notes. Now, the system saves roughly an additional $800,000 each year on transportation. A big driver of integration success is standardizing operations and implementing the use of best practices across the A unified transportation system is unique when it facilities comes to promoting a culture of integration because it is visual and touches every element of the operation of a system. Anything from acute-care hospitals, non-acute care physician offices and administration personnel see and interact with healthcare transportation on a weekly or even daily basis. "Because transportation touches everything, it is an especially visible and effective unifying agent," Mr. Crampton says. "People get connected to [the people who visit their office every day], and the same thing happens culturally in a health system," Mr. Moore says. He has seen the cultural impact of a unified transportation system at Mercy. When the same driver comes to deliver supplies or pick up lab specimens, it can become a cultural mechanism to unify the system, according to Mr. Moore. Value creation. Finally, in addition to unifying the system and giving care providers and administrators a cultural touchstone of integration, using a of an entire operation. According to Mr. Crampton, these significant savings opportunities can be several times the direct savings on transportation alone. The reason: "because a well-designed centralized network creates the mechanism to utilize network connectivity. The delivery and deployment of all goods and services throughout the network can be affected at zero or marginal incremental cost," says Mr. Crampton. The overall impact: A unified, professional transportation system can help a health system physically and culturally integrate while helping achieve significant added value at the same time. In a more complex and pressure-filled healthcare environment, this is more important than ever. n Today's tumultuous healthcare environment is placing demands on systems to do more with less, while also continuing to meet stringent patient safety standards and boost patient satisfaction and outcomes. Since inception more than thirteen years ago, MedSpeed has worked with healthcare organizations to help them leverage their transportation operations in order to reduce risk, improve quality of care, become more nimble and scalable, and gain control of costs. Partnering with MedSpeed allows healthcare organizations to realize strategic gains without investing time and resources to build or upkeep internal functions. Removing the burden of day-to-day execution and management of the transportation of patient and business critical materials from management and staff permits healthcare organizations to focus efforts on improved patient experience and quality care. Governed under the principles of Lean Six Sigma, MedSpeed's superior approach to transportation design and execution consistently delivers operational quality, economic value and strategic advantage. www.medspeed.com.

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