GPS Tracking And More For Life — And Money

Not the first time you’ve seen me comment on properly equipping ambulances here, but it won’t be the last until more corporations and municipalities come to their senses.  If there is one set of vehicles, and one only, that desperately needs tracking it is ambulances.  And not just bare-bones tracking I would submit …. we should be looking at integrated communication systems like this, and looking at them now, not later.

In Motion Technology today announced that Tri-State Ambulance, Inc. headquartered in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has deployed In Motion’s onBoard Mobile Gateway and has achieved improvements in medical emergency operations, communications and response times for its medical transportation services for the residents of western Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa.
“We needed a mobile wireless network that would allow our devices to talk to one another in the field and while in transit, and one that would be ready today for future medical communications technologies,” Matt Zavadsky, Director of Tri-State Ambulance. “Since deploying the onBoard Mobile Gateway, we have seen significant improvements in our response times and operations.”…“These features have improved our emergency response times and patient care, and enable a more efficient use of our paramedics time while in the field and awaiting another call,” (my emphasis) said Zavadsky. “By launching In Motion Technology’s onBoard Mobile Gateway we have equipped our fleet with the type of technology to best serve our patients.” Press release here, In Motion Technology product info here:

Now the advantage of knowing where the ambulances are is easy even for those of us who don’t think much about emergency to understand.  And it would not be hard at all to cost justify a system that would do just that … reliable GPS tracking can easily be found in the under $1,000 per vehicle price range and daily costs of a dollar or less are attainable.  6 months or less ROI (Return On Investment) is an “easy do” … but there’s a lot more to be gained in WMS than just position and speed information.

That’s why this solution is so smart. 

• Provides a LAN in the van:  There are dozens of medical software applications and billing and patient care record applications being marketed which run on PDAs and other personal devices EMS techs may carry.  The better ones of these integrate directly with hospital-based systems.  But if the techs are always on the network, in the hospital and in the field, it’s one one great patient care continuum.  Nice!
• Patient care telemetry:  You’ve seen EMS techs broadcasting patient vital signs to the ER while inbound for more than 20 years on TV.  But, as with a lot of other data that is passed on voice radio today, this is the wrong use of technology.  Digital data should go on the network, improving speed, accuracy and freeing up the crowded voice channels for what needs to be voice.  We do not have a lack of radio frequencies in this country, we have a lack of proper use of such frequencies.
• Earn Money Like a Bandit: I could go on with a lot of other advantages but here’s two hard and fast ways this system is goi8ng to save money and even earn back money that might go missing.  First, as the operations folk say in the press release … remember these are the users testifying, not some salesman making promises …. using positional data combined with historic call records will place more ambulances in the “right place” for future calls.  this works, folks, it can provide better coverage for less money … even reduce “busses” per shift in some cases.  The second way this system makes money like a printing press is billing.  Yes, we all know, health care is expensive.  With a properly designed system like this, every Band-Aid and bottle of sterile water gets billed, billed accurately and billed almost instantly.

If you think your organization can’t afford a system like this … ask your CFO or accounting team just how long it takes overall to get the average insurance claim paid … abd how many days would be shaved if your billing process was real-time?  The answer, in dollar terms, can be staggering.

It is not a question of being able to afford a system like this … it’s a question of how long can you piddle around without one!