Hospitals and healthcare systems are under immense pressure to control costs. But it can’t come at the expense of quality patient care or providers not having the tools and resources to deliver proper treatment.
This can seem like an impossible dilemma, but sometimes the most practical solutions are easily overlooked. One of them is reducing healthcare operational and capital expenses by implementing a proper system for clinical asset and equipment tracking.
Being able to track, monitor and see the status, usage and performance of clinical equipment and assets can uncover many hidden costs, rising expenses, and diminished ROI. It can also help healthcare organizations understand the true total cost of ownership for these devices, minimize servicing and repair costs, and optimize their assets for maximum availability and performance, and make more cost-effective and informed purchasing and leasing decisions.
It starts by understanding the asset and equipment challenge and how much money your hospital or healthcare system might be wasting on unnecessary devices, service and repair costs, purchases and leases decisions.
Clinical equipment and assets comprise about 25 percent of capital expenses in a typical hospital, and they’re often about two percent of a facility’s operating budget. That adds up to millions of dollars in a typical hospital or healthcare system, but a portion of these dollars are often wasted due to lost, misplaced or underutilized equipment. They are often wasted on unnecessary purchases and leases due to a lack of timely preventive maintenance and lack of asset visibility.
Equipment and assets are often lost, misplaced or underused because they cannot be located or tracked. They may also end up costing more to service and repair because their usages can’t be monitored and preventive maintenance does not happen on time. Many capital planning and purchasing processes also suffer due to blindness to assets and their usage, so hospitals end up buying and leasing equipment unnecessarily.
Our team of specialized consultants at Lowry Solutions recently helped implement a mobile clinical asset visibility solution at a major healthcare system with over 90 facilities across 22 states. Before Lowry Solutions’ involvement, the organization was leasing, on average, 30% more clinical assets than it actually used.
This was due to lost or misplaced devices as well as devices needing to be taken out of service for preventive maintenance. Considering that many hospitals invest $2 million on average in mobile clinical assets, this added up to major unnecessary expenditures.
By implementing a clinical asset visibility solution using Sonaria™ Mobile Clinical Asset Visibility and Zebra RFID labels and MC3390R Handheld Readers, the healthcare organization was able to save $350,000 within six months. Due to the fact that newly found devices reduced replacement costs and assets can be properly serviced before reaching end-of-life prematurely.
Sonaria Mobile Clinical Assets Visibility allows administrators and staff to see the location and status of equipment and devices, track uptime, downtime, repair and acquisition costs, and ensure prompt preventive maintenance.
Equipment can also be easily located when needed, and utilization is greatly improved. And the health system can use the resulting insights to decide where to deploy capital resources and when to replace aging equipment.
As a result of this initial success, the healthcare organization now plans to deploy Sonaria’s Mobile Clinical Asset Visibility within its remaining 40 locations to better serve over 30 million patients over the next 12 months.
When it comes to end-to-end solutions, Lowry Solutions spares no effort in implementing efficient strategies for a faster return of investment. Count on tested solutions that thrive in demanding environments.
Contact Lowry Solutions and experience all the benefits of seamless innovation in your workflow.
Also read – The Real Reason Why Healthcare Systems Need
