Absolutely! Our products adhere to the HL7 standard for sharing data, and will interface with any system and environment capable of producing or receiving HL7 formatted transactions through your HL7 gateway. We also receive data in LPD or flat file formats. Our outbound HL7 messages can update bed boards and visibility systems with changing bed statuses and tracking information as patients are moved around the hospital.
Any terminal services client PC on the same LAN can access PTS or ABC. This is useful with our optional Order Entry sub-system, which allows ancillary units or the floors to request their own trips online. We are currently developing browser based versions of ABC and PTS which will result in fast application execution, low bandwidth requirements, low maintenance burden, client platform independence and easy user accessibility. PTS and ABC can accept HL7 formatted information directly from the hospital mainframe systems through your HL7 gateway. Both product offerings can send text messages to pagers, cellular or smart phones and other hand held devices carried by transporters, housekeepers, managers, bed controllers, pharmacy, dietary, and any other service providers. There is also an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) component for both systems, called Automated Dispatch Plus (AD+). With this feature, users can access PTS and ABC from any wireless or land line phone and record the progress of the assignment.
Both PTS and ABC are Windows-based applications and run under Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Our server software is currently Windows Server 2008 R2. The hospital provides a current version of Microsoft SQL Server backend as the data storage tool.
Both products can process normal requests and assignments automatically, leaving supervisors free to deal with exceptions and priority changes. By design, PTS and ABC are proactive management tools and, as such, should be used by the dispatchers and coordinators to maximize their own, as well as the entire departments’, efficiency and productivity.
PTS uses industrial engineering principals to establish standard durations for each trip in your facility. Your campus is segmented into zones with travel time studies performed between all zones. These "dry runs" take into consideration your hospital's pre-determined drag factors for various types of equipment as well as equipment find and put away times. In addition, nursing and ancillary unit delay factors are taken into account. When a trip is dispatched, PTS knows approximately how long the trip should take regardless of its beginning and ending zone. This helps to optimize on time delivery of patients and creates a standard unit of work against which actual performance can be compared.
