Helping Hospitals Through Predictive Staffing and Healthcare Analytics

Hospitals today have a challenge: accomplish more with less while providing the best possible care. The challenge seems conflicting – as if one part of the challenge is achieved, the other is not or cannot be. In our Patient Transportation division, we’re using standardized processes, and improved data and analytics to provide best in class service and help the hospitals we serve face this challenge head-on.

This year we will transport approximately 10 million patients across more than 85 healthcare facilities, making Crothall the industry leader in patient transportation services. Our goal is to set compliance standards to each request within 10 minutes or less. Using information from the 10 million patients we transport, we develop staffing plans that predict patient volumes by hour and by day to allow us to achieve this service level. Any variance we see in real time to these plans allows our operators to either increase or decrease staffing levels to allow for maximum optimization of service.

One obvious benefit of predictive analytics is cost savings: we eliminate waste in labor staffing. But more than cost savings, these staffing plans help us deliver on our patient satisfaction goals. Ensuring that a patient is delivered in a safe and timely fashion allows clinical care personnel to operate at the ceiling of their license and more time by the bedside driving increased levels of satisfaction. The combination of technology, collaboration with the hospital’s clinical care team, experienced managers and compassionate Crothall associates on the ground enable us to provide a Welcome Experience in all the hospitals where we serve.

How Do Our Analytics Work?

In many ways, we serve as each hospital’s air traffic control system for all patient transportation requests. Our technology ensures quick communication and optimizes our processes for each request.

Once a care provider requests a patient to be moved, it is entered into our technology application and forwarded to a transporter. Each transporter has a hand-held device where he or she can see the all the relevant information needed to move the patient. We track each step along a transporter’s journey to ensure the patient is safely and quickly transported.

Standardized Processes that Improve Patient Throughput

Patient throughput, cycling patients through a hospital is very important for our partners. Efficient patient throughput ensures we’re helping our clients maximize their capital and facilities. When a care provider sends a request that a patient is ready to be discharged, we text vital information to the patient transport staff, including the names of the patient and nurse, and the assignment. The transporter soon arrives at the patient’s room, provides them with a friendly greeting and gets the patient ready to go home.

Shortly after leaving the room, the transporter informs the dispatch center the patient has left, which triggers a new message to the Environmental Services (EVS) team to begin cleaning the room. Here, productivity is also important. The housekeeping staff must get the room cleaned within a specific period so the hospital can admit the next patient into the same room.

A Case Study – University of Chicago Medical Center

Every hospital is different so we adjust our services to help our clients meet their goals.

Our partners at the University of Chicago Medicine on the city’s South Side benefitted dramatically from our models and workflow processes. In the first year of operation, patient transport response time was cut in half, task completion times were reduced by 56 percent while the transports involving patient discharges rose 81 percent. The increase in discharge utilization resulted in improved efficiencies in patient throughput as real time notification of a room that needed cleaning occurred more frequently. The increase in productivity saved the hospital 140 hours in labor each month. You can read more about this success story here.