One of the main reasons Medigate created our Clinical Device Efficiency (CDE) module was in direct response to our customers, who repeatedly told us they needed accurate data to improve their device management workflows. As we dug into this problem, some straightforward ways became apparent, and soon, CDE was in beta testing at key customer sites.
Now that some time’s passed since it became available on the market, I wanted to share some reported achievements that Medigate users have shared. And while it’s true that not every healthcare delivery organization (HDO) will achieve these types of results – as each environment is unique – the following is a list of 5 common ways our Clinical Device Efficiency product has helped our customers.
1. Accurate Data in the CMMS: Keeping the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) up-to-date typically requires a lot of manual data entry, which - let’s not lie - nobody’s got the time for. Since devices move around so much and keeping the CMMS updated is hard, it can quickly get out of hand!
A Critical-Access hospital customer connected their CMMS to the dynamic data coming from CDE independently. Usually, our world-class post-sales team works alongside a customer to integrate tools, but they self-served and were operational within minutes. Their organization has a consistent feed of matching data that regularly updates their CMMS!
2. BioMed Time: The saying, “Time is money,” rings true here. Every hour a highly trained and specialized Biomedical Engineer spends walking around looking for a device is a waste of their time and costs HDOs significant amounts of dollars each year, in addition to generating lots of frustration.
A rural hospital system customer sent us an email detailing how the CDE module had reduced 400 hours of manual effort for BioMed (i.e., walking around) down to 2. Now they can do their jobs, meet front-line care staff, and find ways to support teams without the pressure of having to locate missing devices they can’t track down.
3. Reduced Annual Device Spend: On average, a hospital will replace around 10% of their clinical devices each year. This line item in your capital plan can be a costly and variable portion of the budget. While some of this replacement is needed due to lifecycle and device age, other pieces ensure staff has enough devices to do their job. But what about all the devices you bought last year? Where did all of those go?
A standalone hospital customer rejected a budget request for around 700 new devices by providing their unit with already purchased devices. The best part is that they saved a significant amount of money, and it did not prevent them from getting the tools they needed for the front-line care teams to do their job!
4. Device Availability: Keeping devices out on the patient floors so that front-line staff can use them for patient care is one of the goals for most HTM departments. No Biomedical Engineer wants to take devices from nurses even though they need to. The end goal is always for a nurse to find what they need when they need it.
An Academic Medical Center customer found around 3,000 devices that hadn’t connected to the network in over six months. Some had been marked as lost in the CMMS, but remarkably, all of them were hiding somewhere on a patient care floor! By finding and returning them to service, they experienced the benefit of 3,000 new devices for the front-line team without the cost.
5. Heavy Iron Acquisition Costs: Large radiological devices cost millions for the device and the construction to prep the physical space for these complex machines. With this cost being so high, any additional requisitions for these devices are scrutinized heavily. Tracking the types of studies done by these devices can provide a baseline for evaluation to help determine future acquisition needs.
An urban hospital customer had had some patient backlog, so radiology requested a new device. The Medigate data showed that an existing device could have a software upgrade and be made available for the type of backlogged advanced studies. Instead of buying a new appliance, this software upgrade was a cheap alternative!
These outcomes aligned with the challenges our customers asked us to solve, so it’s encouraging to see some early results from CDE in live environments. We constantly get more feedback and have introduced new ideas to streamline workflows. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing back from live customer environments soon. And I hope you are too.
To learn more about Clinical Device Efficiency, visit medigate.io/cde.
