Five Tips on Doing More with Less

As most medical professionals are acutely aware, the local economy is now feeling the effects of the national economic crisis. While we hear it is not as bad as in the east coast or west coast, that really is no solace when budgets are tight. Here at InTelemed, we have seen a noticable slowdown in new equipment purchases. Yet on the flip side we have seen an increase in upgrades, repairs and maintenance work. Healthcare professionals are stretching their existing systems while waiting on the economy to turn around.

To assist our customers in this difficult time, we decided to put together a list of ways to do more with less. How can you either save money with only modest outlays of cash, or better yet, extend the life of your existing equipment and better serve your physicians and patients without breaking the bank.

1) Consolidate Telecommunications


This is one of the biggest savings you can get in healthcare. Telecom service is expensive, yet the price for telecom drops yearly. If you have not reviewed your telecom strategy in recent years, you should take a close look at what you have, what you need and how you can lower your costs and at the same time improve the service to your physicians and patients.

How do you do this? First start by gathering information from your telecom vendor to understand what you are paying now. Often times they will give you better pricing by just asking. But believe me, they don't volunteer any suggestions on how to save even more. For example, they might give you a discount on your telephone lines, but they WON'T tell you that you could completely eliminate a T1 line by switching to IP telephones.

Instead, gather all your bills from your various vendors, then talk to an experienced independent vendor like InTelemed to come up with a strategy on how to consolidate and even eliminate some telecom services. We have found customers can often times completely pay for equipment upgrades in less than 12 months of telecom savings.

2) Simplify Network Infrastructure

As most hospital computer networks grow, they become increasingly complex and difficult to manage. While larger hospitals have the luxury of dedicated network engineers focused on managing this important infrastructure component, smaller facilites either don't have a dedicated IT person, or if they do, that person or small group of IT pro's must wear many hats. Thus they often spend so much time putting out fires they don't have time to manage the growth of the network, thereby compounding the problem.

New network technology allows you to consolidate more lines into fewer switches, and those consolidated switches are much easier to maintain and manage than older systems. For example, many hospitals will have dozens upon dozens of smaller 5-10-24 port unmanaged swithes scattered throughout the hospital. This in itself can cause network delays, network jitter, and unexplainable downtime. By consolidating the these disparate, unmanagable switches into a few integrated, high performance managable switches, you greatly simplify the task of managing this important infrastructure resource and at the same time improve network uptime.

Our experience shows that manpower is one of the most expensive resources at a hospital. By consolidating and simplifying your network infrastructure, you can save signficant manpower and provide a more reliable, robust service to your staff.

3) Implement Wireless Technology for Patients & Staff

Patients increasingly have options when choosing a hospital, especially when choosing high profit services such as elective surgery. In addition, patients are more educated about the options they have, may spend time doing research on healthcare providers, and while their first priority is quality medical care, an increasingly important consideration is the availability of wireless Internet at their chosen hospital. Today's younger generation grew up with the Internet, and they expect it to be available at places such as coffee shops, restaurants, and even hospitals. Many won't even consider a stay at a hospital without free wireless Internet for their laptop computer and cell phone.

As a healthcare provider you may be missing out on patient decisions and not even know why. It is becoming imperitive that hospitals provide wireless Internet to their patients, or watch as these patients, especially the ones with good jobs and good insurance, choose hospitals that do provide this increasing important service.

But how do you implement wireless technology in your hospital that is available not only for your patients, but also for your staff. How do you secure and protect valuable healthcare information from unauthorized access? Putting in a few independent wireless access points is a recipe for disaster.

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4) Move to Digital via DRX-1 Wireless



Most hospitals realize the need to move to a digital radiology department. Most rural hospitals have chosen to implement CR technology as an interim step to full digital. While CR is much better than analog film, you really don't see the big productivity gains that hospitals are able to achieve with DR technology. Yet DR technology has been out of reach for most facilities, especially those with traditional xray equipment that is still operational and functional.

The Carestream Kodak DRX-1 gives hospitals the realize the gains achievable with DR technology without requiring an expensive room renovation and replacement. You can keep your investment in xray equipment yet move to a fully digital environment, with a huge increase in productivity, and be up and running in hours instead of days.

5) Install new radiology workstations

The easiest and least costly way to put a new face on your PACS network is to install new workstations. While these won't necessarily speed up image transmission, they will provide better quality images on much better monitors at a fraction of the cost of deploying a new PACS system. Today's LCD flat panels from Dell and others offer the quality of diagnostic medical monitors at a fraction of the cost just a few years ago. For as little as $1,500 per station you can get a new dual monitor system that your end users will love, breathing fresh life into your older PACS. Your end users will think you have made a major upgrade while in fact you have really only performed a minor facelift.