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Canadian hospitals make healthy changes with Intermec
Toronto, Canada, stretches along the shores of Lake Ontario and is home to more than four million people. While Toronto is a thriving, prosperous city, the social character and make up are changing, which has had a significant impact on public health issues.
Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system has always faced pressures to meet the needs of this diverse city and to minimize costs. Now, as government funding slows, that pressure is tremendous. Hospitals across the country must find ways to perform the same public services more efficiently.
Hospital Logistics, Inc. is a newly formed Public Private Partnership between Canada’s University Health Network and ThIiNC, a Toronto-based company that designs systems to solve healthcare supply-chain problems. Created in 2002, Hospital Logistics was charged with establishing a complete, cost-effective system so that its member hospitals could streamline inventory, ordering, and distribution of medical supplies.
After extensive product comparison, Hospital Logistics put together an application suite that featured Intermec radio-frequency (RF) hardware for warehouse operations and Intermec 720 mobile computers for use in the hospitals. “We felt Intermec had the better product. It fit our environment better, and the pricing was right,” said Sharon Booth, director of information technology at Hospital Logistics.
The new system is part of a strategy that allows Hospital Logistics’ seven member hospitals in the Toronto area to outsource their medical-supply restocking system. The 37,500-square-foot Hospital Logistics warehouse, located 15 miles from Toronto in Oakville, serves as each member hospital’s distribution center.
"They’re using an Intermec device to pull inventory from a warehouse into their own hospital. That’s where they gain the efficiencies and quick turnaround time,” said Kim Boucher, an Intermec senior account executive. “The logistics system is allowing them to pick and replenish on a timely basis without going through their own receiving system at the hospital."
Among other benefits, the new system lets medical personnel spend less time in front of supply shelves and more time on other hospital duties.
University Health Network (UHN) is an umbrella organization that oversees three teaching and research hospitals in Toronto: Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto General Hospital and Toronto Western Hospital. Knowing constrained funding and shortages in human resources along with an aging population would put a huge strain on hospital resources, UHN devised a strategic plan to determine what information technology resources would be needed over the next five years. One of the decisions the organization made was to turn over much of its supply replenishment responsibility to Hospital Logistics.
Since the project’s inception, four other Toronto hospitals have signed on as customers. All are in the Toronto area: Mt. Sinai Hospital, Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, Women’s College Hospital, and Orthopaedic and Arthritic Hospital.
The system begins with the hospital supply carts and storage closets. Each ward has them, and their supplies are counted every day. Bandages, syringes, saline solution, diapers, and other routinely used consumables are stocked in predetermined quantities. During each shift, a hospital worker makes the rounds with an Intermec 720 mobile computer in hand.
Compact and powerful, the 720 mobile computer looks much like a personal digital assistant. Its flexible design allows for radio as well as wired configuration. Most hospitals will use a wired transmission method, as radio signals can interfere with surgical, intensive care or other critical electronics.
The worker first scans the bar-code label on the cart or shelf with the mobile computer’s integrated scanner. This identifies the cart or closet location. The worker then chooses an item from the mobile computer’s pull-down menu and enters the on-hand amount. A software application from TECSYS brings up a suggested replenishment quantity for that item. Then the worker either chooses that quantity or overrides it to order a different amount.
Once all the items have been counted and their restock orders loaded into the mobile computer, the hospital worker places the Intermec 720 into its docking cradle. The batched information speeds to Hospital Logistics through either a digital subscriber line or virtual private network, depending on the location.
“Within seconds it’s down in my warehouse and gets picked and shipped the same day,” Booth said. Under the old system, orders took an average of two to three days to arrive.
At the warehouse, workers pick ordered supplies using an Intermec 802.11b RF system. The RF backbone includes Intermec MobileLAN 2100 access points to transmit data across the warehouse, providing a wireless connection between the host computer and pickers’ Intermec 2415 and 2435 handheld computers.
Warehouse workers receive purchase orders on their handheld computers and can relay job updates back to the host server. Upon order completion, the system automatically prints a container packing list using an Intermec EasyCoder 3400 printer.
Real-time operator feedback means Hospital Logistics staff has accurate, up-to-date information on the consumption rate of supplies. Because many of these supplies are medically crucial, the high accuracy of the system is vital.
Not only is the system accurate, it’s easily expandable. Booth plans to add Intermec 2435 handheld computers and a wireless printer to the warehouse side. She has shown the color display version of the Intermec 700 series mobile computer to managers at some member hospitals and said it generated great excitement. Booth plans to add 10 for hospital use. “I know it’s going to knock their socks off,” she said.
As more hospitals begin using Hospital Logistics, Booth sees opportunities for greater efficiency within Canada’s healthcare system.
“Intermec equipment helps minimize costs,” she said. “It saves time because of the technology itself. Hospitals don’t have to store as much of the supplies. It takes less time for workers to keep track of inventory. They don’t have to expend as much energy looking after it. The cost of carrying the inventory has gone down because of that.”
Hospitals everywhere need to be ready for just about anything. Finding ways to make healthcare resources work harder and better is something the people at Intermec have long considered a critical care.
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