Transport costs sustainably reduced by 66 per cent

For the last 18 months INFORM has optimised transport of patients at St. Georg hospital, Eisenach.

Over the last year and a half St. Georg hospital, Eisenach, has organised its patient transport with the help of the transport management system SyncroTESS. The software of the IT company INFORM manages the whole transport process online and automatically via a central control centre. The system having been up and running for around 18 months, St. Georg hospital, Eisenach, is now able to report a sustainable 66 per cent reduction in transport costs.

„Whereas before the implementation of the system an average of €6.50 was spent on each trip, now the cost is only €2.20“, explains Steffen Winter, manager of transport service at St Georg hospital, Eisenach. These savings have also been made possible, alongside the implementation of the transport management system, by the development of a central transport service. Winter made this figure known at the 5th convention for health-service decision-makers and logisticians, which was held by INFORM and Leverkusen hospital on the 19th of March.

At Eisenach hospital, SyncroTESS links the transport service with all of the different areas of the hospital, which are in turn connected to the system. In each hospital department, employees can enter transport orders via an intranet based order management system. The forwarding of orders to the transport service employee is carried out using radio data transmission. The system selects each particular employee according to suitability. „That way we can relieve the nursing staff, up until now responsible for patient transport, of that duty,“ continues Winter. „The integration of routine orders as well as the clear overview of the entire transport situation have also led to us being able to shorten patient waiting times.“

With 385 beds and around 650 employees, St. Georg Hospital, Eisenach, is a hospital that offers both primary and secondary health care. Following the hospital management’s decision to introduce a central transport service and integrate an automatic transport management system, in early 2007 they finally opted to work with INFORM. The system has been up and running since August 2007. „According to our calculations, much greater savings than we expected - two thirds of the original transport costs - mean that the investment has already paid off.“, say the hospital managers, Hans-Peter Jochum and Dr. Uwe Leder.

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