What’s In Your Turnover Kits?
Who’s Going Where? The Answer Could Be in Your Palm
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You can’t be everywhere at once, but now there’s a way to see where everyone else is in your facility at any given moment. Larger practices and hospitals that want to get something more advanced than radios and paper notes to control patient flow may want to look at MDA TransQuest, which manufacturer MDA Technologies describes as a real-time wireless patient transport system. With this system, everyone involved in moving patients can find any given person by glancing at a PDA’s screen.

The system works by having all of the PDAs interconnected via an intranet. When a transporter accepts a dispatch and completes the task, he notes it on his PDA and all the other PDAs are instantly updated. Everyone knows where the patients are, where they’re going and who’s ready to receive them, so nobody has to go searching through the facility. Best of all, no one has to remember the last note they read or worry about mishearing a radio announcement. The hospitals that used this system in pilot studies reported increased efficiency, reduced costs, improved employee satisfaction and better patient experiences, says the company.

The price for a MDA TransQuest network depends on the size of the center.

Chris Rosenthal, RN, MSN, CNOR
Ms. Rosenthal (rosenthalc@jackson.org) is director of surgical services for Jackson Hospital and Clinics
in Montgomery, Ala.