In March 2019, Central Finland Central Hospital has deployed the 9Solutions system for managing patient transports. The solution includes the Smooth user interface for making patient transport orders and the Smooth Lite mobile application for receiving and processing the orders. The solution is used in internal patient transports in the whole Central Finland Central Hospital area and it manages up to 1,600 patient transport orders per week.
Miia Paatola, materials handling manager in the patient logistics unit of the Central Finland Central Hospital, considers that one of the greatest benefits is the central management of patient transports, which makes the work of all parties easier and more efficient: “The system has enabled centralisation in patient transport management, because the system can be controlled directly in one user interface. It’s easy to use, informative and it displays the overall status of orders.”
Patient transports were previously arranged in a decentralised manner – nursing staff produced the service each in their own unit. In practice, nurses made patient transport service orders by phone or paper slips. Managing the activity became challenging when there were a lot of simultaneous transports. Continuously ringing phones also disturbed the work of patient transporters as well as the patients.
Practical experiences of the patient transport management system
Paatola has been satisfied with the new 9Solutions system. The initial threshold in making transport orders has been low and basic instruction has helped them get started:
The Smooth user interface is easy to use. Orders are easy to make, and we haven’t needed any extra trainings for it, Paatola comments the deployment of the service.
Now a nurse can order a patient transport in the Smooth user interface instead of calling by phone, and information about the order is forwarded directly to the Smooth Lite mobile application of all patient transporters. A transporter can reserve the nearest or urgent transport from the task list in the application. When a patient transporter reserves a transport task, the orderer of the transport and the other transporters can see that the task is underway. This makes it easier to organise work, helps reduce redundant work and saves time by eliminating long round trips.
Paatola describes the effects of the new system on the work of patient transporters: “The revision has been especially good to patient transporters, because they no longer need to fetch a paper slip from a table or return to ask for the next transport task. They can follow the transport orders all the time in the phone application and select the next task to themselves from the list. They can continue from where they are and select a transport task in the vicinity.”
Ordering patient transports in the Smooth user interface
A nurse can order a patient transport easily on the workstation from the Smooth user interface.
- A transport can be ordered immediately or to a specific time on the next day, for example
- The basic information of patients and the location information of the patient come directly from the patient information system
- The orderer of the transport selects only the target ward and room
- The status of transports can be followed in real time
- The cloud-based system requires no separate devices or systems
- User management has been centralised in the AD service → The user needs no separate Ids and the system requires no separate login
- Reports of transports: number of transports, times, time from order to completion
Managing transport orders with the Smooth Lite mobile application
Smooth Lite is an easy-to-use mobile application for receiving and processing transport orders.
- Transport orders are displayed directly in the Smooth Lite mobile application of the patient transporter
- The order includes patient and transport information, patient bed location and potential other information
- Information about task status is forwarded also to other employees, which makes it easier to coordinate the work and reduces unnecessary and redundant work
