TechValidate Research on Agiliti

Introduction

This case study is based on a July 2018 survey of Agiliti customers by TechValidate, a 3rd-party research service. The profiled academic medical center in this case study was focused on reducing their service costs, increasing technician productivity and improving PM and recall compliance and reporting. The hospital selected Agiliti to provide a flexible, on-demand coverage, as well as dedicated technical support for entire equipment types, to help them achieve their service goals.

Challenges

The profiled academic medical center ultimately selected Agiliti for their clinical engineering services in order to address the following business challenges at their hospital:

• Cost of service & repairs/service to acquisition costs
• Equipment uptime
• Matching work levels to staffing levels (employee leave, episodic event)
• PM compliance & reporting
• Technician competency levels – technician skill set

Use Case

Today, the profiled hospital relies on a hybrid service model that features the following key capabilities:

• Supplemental staffing (hourly or block of time)
• Equipment type contract (complete PM and repair of an equipment type, i.e. beds, infusion pumps)

When asked, the Biomed Director identified the capability of the program to offer flexible coverage (Access to flexible, on-demand FTEs) as a key differentiator from the competition.

Results

The profiled academic medical centers agrees that the capabilities of the hybrid clinical engineering program were highly valuable to the success of their facility, and Agiliti helped them to achieve the following results:

• Improved PM and recall compliance
• Improved equipment uptime
• Achieved better labor allocation
• Improved inventory management

In evaluating the program, the Biomed Director mentioned that the “onboarding and implementation exceeded their expectations compared to similar vendors they have worked with in the past.” Also, as a result of partnering with Agiliti for multiple different solutions, the were able to realize a synergistic benefit across the facility.

Introduction

This case study is based on a June 2017 survey of Agiliti customers by Techvalidate, a 3rd party research service. The profiled hospital in this case study was heavily focused on reducing patient risk, boosting staff productivity and reducing medical equipment-related costs. The hospital selected Agiliti’ on-site equipment management program to fix their fragmented process and to help them achieve these goals.

Challenges

The profiled hospital selected Agiliti’ on-site equipment management program to address the following business challenges at their hospital:

• Equipment availability (shortages)
• Time to therapy (equipment delays)
• Equipment in-service / Just in time orientation
• Broken / non-functional equipment
• Risk reduction (HAIs, HAPIs, Falls)
• Nurse satisfaction
• Nurse productivity
• Nurse time spent at the bed side
• Patient satisfaction (care responsiveness)
• Equipment utilization (% time in use)
• Equipment tracking
• Lost equipment
• Equipment cleaning and documentation
• Having multiple rental vendors
• Medical equipment rental and capital costs

In addition, the hospital estimates that their nurses spent 31-45 minutes on administrative tasks each shift before implementing Agiliti’ on-site services.

Use Case

Today, the profiled hospital relies on Agiliti’ on-site program and staff to manage the following equipment types:

• Infusion pumps
• Feeding pumps
• ALPS Currie Medical machines
• Blanketrol Hypothermia machines
• PCA pumps, Epidural Pumps, & T-pumps
• Bed exit alarms

When asked, the Director of Patient Care Services identified the following capabilities of the program as direct benefits for the nursing staff:

• Ability to reduce equipment delays and improve speed to therapy
• On-site single point of contact
• 24/7 service coverage
• Equipment delivery to the patient room / floor
• Designated equipment storage
• Equipment availability

Results

The surveyed hospital agrees that the on-site equipment management program is highly valuable to the success of their facility, and Agiliti has helped them to realize the following results:

• Increased nurse satisfaction
• Improved caregiver time at bedside
• Reduced equipment delays & improved speed to therapy
• Improved equipment utilization & availability
• Improved caregiver productivity
• Reduced their administrative burden (contacting vendors, paperwork)
• Reduced lost equipment

The Director of Patient Care Service estimates that their nurses spend <15 minutes each shift on administrative tasks after implementing Agiliti’ on-site services.

When asked what would be the impact if the on-site program went away, the hospital identified the following consequences:

• A risk to the clinical outcome / patient experience
• Decreased billing accuracy for therapy timing
• Lowered equipment availability
• Increased time to therapy / treatment delays
• Unplanned capital purchases
• Increased rental expenses
• Increased nursing complaints / frustration
• Decreased caregiver satisfaction
• Decreased staff productivity
• Increased time to discharge / longer length of stay
• Decreased productivity of clinical engineering staff
• Increased capital investments toward tracking technology

The Director of Patient Care Services also mentioned that Agiliti’ program “helped to bridge the gap between different departments, which improved staff productivity and satisfaction.”