Real-Time Location Systems: Revolutionizing Porter Services for Improving Patient Care Efficiency
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Transport porters (TPTs) are essentially involved in supporting hospital operations and maintaining high-quality patient care. The traditional porter management lacks transmission of temporal and spatial information of the porters thus affecting porter operations. In this work, we investigate the barriers in traditional porter management and the impact of a real-time location system (RTLS) in improving time and cost efficiency for porter operations. METHODOLOGY: A six-month study was conducted at Medanta - The Medicity, Gurugram investigating the limitations of traditional management and efficiency of indoor porter tracking system (IPTS) on TPTs operational activities by assessing the waiting time and total turnaround time (TAT). The cost-effectiveness of IPTS was determined based on capital expenditure and return on investment (ROI) post-technology implementation. RESULTS: This study highlights that improvements are required in porter management as 175 out of 285 (62%) calls were unanswered by TPTs. Post deployment of IPTS, the TAT for A-wing was reduced from 28 minutes to 20 minutes, and for B-wing, it was reduced from 26 minutes to 18 minutes. Staff optimization of three and four porters was done for A-wing and B-wing, respectively. The capital expenditure was recovered by reduced wait time and optimization of staff, thereby anticipating a monthly saving of ₹0.18 million (US$ 2150). The effective outcome of IPTS porter management envisaged its expansion to inpatient medicine delivery with a substantial cost reduction of ₹8.0 million (US$ 96,000) over three years. CONCLUSION: The implementation of IPTS improved the operational activities of porters and improved staff utilization. Cost savings from staff optimization lays the groundwork for new technology integrations for long-term operational advancements.
Source: Cureus
DOI: 10.7759/cureus.69922
Institutions: Medanta The Medicity, Medanta The Medicity
Language: English
Subfield: Emergency Medical Services
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4402714627