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"As a hospital based HME we face some staggering operational challenges every day" says Dave Lyman, RRT, and Regional Manager of Operations. "These challenges include meeting the service demands of our sister Hospital along with the demands of our valuable base of traditional referral sources, all while controlling costs. We foresaw the pressures of competitive bidding coming to our markets and we knew that we had to get our costs under control so we chose HMEGPS.

 

Our management team decided that the best way to implement the system was to make it a positive experience for our drivers. So we created an ongoing contest that rewards drivers for decreased time per stop, provided that their patient satisfaction score was satisfactory. Now our drivers compete amongst themselves for paid time off on Fridays.

 

Our results are:
• Our overtime is down by $236 per driver per month ($2832 annual).
• Decreased average minutes per stop
• Increased stops per day
• Happier drivers

 

We have also reduced our miles travelled by 350 miles per vehicle per month (9%), resulting in savings of $192 per vehicle per month ($2304 annually). We have redesigned the way we route our drivers. We now can see criss crossing patterns that we could not see in the past. We have also seen a reduction of miles because of the competition among our drivers. In order to get that paid time off on Fridays, they think out the straightest route between two points and they are less likely to do any personal business while on duty.

 

By far the biggest benefit of the system is one that you can't put a pencil to, PATIENT SATISAFACTION. This is huge. We are simply servicing our patients faster and communicating with them much better. Now our CSR's simply look on the map and verify anticipated delivery times. This results in a happier patient, and much less frustration between our drivers, warehouse and CSR's. The domino effect is that this whole new process is getting back to our referral sources and cementing our relationships with our customers."