Advancing the Critical Connection Between Asset Management and Patient Care
Leading hospitals and medical centers are strategically implementing asset management programs that directly impact patient care delivery.
Every healthcare facility strives to deliver the best possible medical services to patients – administering appropriate treatments and quality care in a setting that’s safe and secure. The clinicians and support staff who are at the heart of healthcare rely on a sophisticated infrastructure of equipment that supports their work as caregivers.
Patients don’t give much thought to it but managing that infrastructure – and ensuring that the right equipment is available where, when and how it’s needed – is highly complex. It requires time and effort from clinicians and staff and is challenging given the size of today’s healthcare facilities and the competing critical priorities that caregivers must balance.
Fortunately, there are innovative ways to improve the critical connection between managing assets and maintaining patient care. Leading hospitals and medical centers carefully plan and strategically implement asset management programs designed to alleviate much of the complexity and cost. With automated asset management, they reduce the time that clinicians, clinical engineering staff and other caregivers spend searching for equipment and devices. They also take advantage of solutions that ensure devices are clean, functioning and ready to serve the next patient.
For example, many hospitals and clinics have found success by implementing an asset management program to manage their fleet of infusion pumps. Due to their mobile design and widespread use of infusion pumps throughout healthcare facilities, ensuring the efficient distribution and availability of pumps is difficult without visibility into the location of these critical devices.
Consider Saint Francis Medical Center. This midwestern hospital had two clear goals related to the management of their infusion pumps. First, they wanted to improve device management and increase efficiencies to ensure the availability of pumps. Second, they wanted to enhance the performance and longevity of the devices. By integrating the BD Alaris™ Asset Management interface of the BD Alaris™ System with Securitas Healthcare’s MobileView® Software Platform, Saint Francis Medical Center now has real-time visibility to the location of every BD Alaris™ System infusion device. As a result, they achieved 100% device remediation of the entire fleet in just a few days, saved $164,000 from loss prevention and they were able to complete a drug library update to all pumps in just three weeks instead of a full year.
Another example is AdventHealth Orlando, which has revolutionized PAR level management of infusion pumps. Personnel are able to visualize where soiled pumps have accumulated in utility rooms in real-time, allowing them to focus their efforts on cleaning and returning the largest pools of pumps to patient care. In doing so, the hospital realized $66,000 in savings just from the initial pilot program. In a post-pilot survey, 88% of nurses reported that readily available pumps had an impact on patient care, with 25% reporting at least 30 minutes of extra time per day. And patient care delays were reduced by 66% thanks to the new process and supporting system.
Securitas Healthcare recognizes the importance of a defined asset management strategy for optimizing equipment utilization, increasing caregiver efficiencies and improving patient care. In addition to our portfolio of Asset Management solutions, we also partner with leading infusion pump vendors as well as a variety of healthcare technology organizations. Partnering with these healthcare software companies, and communication and infrastructure providers, enables us to look beyond simple asset management to expand the value of real-time data throughout healthcare facilities with a broad spectrum of solutions that empower caregivers and improve patient care.