Page 15 - HME Business, August/September 2019

You want your patients to feel their best.
We make it easier.
Sigvaris has changed, but our products haven’t.
We are still the brand you rely on
and trust for your compression needs. We just have a new way of looking
at our medical products that makes solution for your customers.
Let’s live the change together.
Visit us at sigvaris.com to learn more.
Visit us at AVLS in booth #313 and Medtrade in booth #2336
sigvaris.com
SIGVARIS and SIGVARIS GROUP are registered trademarks of SIGVARIS, CH-9014 St.Gallen/Switzerland, in many countries worldwide. © Copyright 2019 SIGVARIS, Inc.
load. That’s a very ironed out process: The work orders are generated for the day, the list of what inventory is needed for the truck and then someone is collecting all of that and organizing it into, “Okay, these 10 things need to go in truck A. These 12 things need to go in truck B”, and so on and so forth.
But what we found is that a lot of providers don’t tell the software that that’s happening. So there were no econo- mies that could be made there. There were no efficiencies that could be realized because you weren’t telling us what you were doing. You were just doing it in real life. So we took that model and thought, “What would it look like
to put that staging in software? What if the staging crew started entering in all the lot numbers and all the serial numbers for the equipment that’s going into the truck, so that when the driver’s on the road and delivering the stuff in the home, they’re not scratching down all these illegible numbers that your billers need in order to confirm those orders to create revenue?”
You hand someone a tablet of the 10 or 12 orders that they’re basically picking and packing, with a barcode gun or you have a little barcode reader attachment on a mobile device. And while staff is out in the racks of your ware- house, they’re just scanning those things and it’s capturing all that information.
And then when it’s on the truck, the driver just has to drop it off. He gets to stand there and shine and give the real service, which is him and his information and educa- tion. But he’s not on the ground looking at the barcode underneath the wheelchair seat, trying to write that down so he doesn’t get yelled at later.
HMEB: Because it’s already been packed. I imagine if any of this stuff requires signature release, then it’s all associated against those serial numbers, as well.
Anderson: Absolutely. And you have a lot more control and transparency of where your inventory is. Let’s talk about a realistic inventory evaluation. Now we really know, “Oh, that item’s on Bob’s truck; it’s committed.” And when he gets back to the shop tonight we can do a reconciliation and find out what actually took place — or even do that in real-time, because we can do that as the driver is dropping things off it can signal back to home base what’s going on. So everything is accounted for and there’s no gray area. You know if something’s out for delivery and if it’s been delivered or not.
HMEB: What is the actual technology that’s making this happen, the telemetry? Is it just the drivers’ smart- phones? Or is there a specialized device?
Anderson: All the different software providers develop on different platforms. What is very common right now in our lives as consumers is apps. So most of the time when you bought a billing, a revenue cycle management system, that wasn’t an app. That wasn’t something you downloaded from the Play store. You went through an integration and then an installation that’s on a server or it’s hosted in a cloud environment.
As these software vendors grow and see the need for mobile delivery like we did, they developed apps. So, you’ll hear terms like native; it’s a native app. Meaning that it’s an actual application that you download from the Play store to any mobile device, your personal cell phone, your work cell phone, your work tablet, any device and we’re coding in
that technology even though it’s different from what you’ve installed on your computer but we make them talk to
each other because we’re the author of both so that they’re easily deployable to a lot of people on any kind of device and you’re not having to buy specific things to make this happen. You can just use your existing suite technology
HMEB: How do emergencies fit into this scenario? Say a respiratory client is having trouble. How can tech- nology address those situations?
Anderson: Each and everything is an emergency with customers and patients in this stage of their chronic care management. So, mobile solutions has to have a way to add a delivery in when things come up. With Mobile Driver,
or with a mobile delivery service, the office would simply add that order in and then assign it into that driver’s route. And then when the next time he picks up his device and it refreshes, it’s alerting him, “Hey, you have a new delivery. We’ve rerouted it into your map, your directions. So maybe it makes sense to do that one next based on the setup time, or where it’s located in your route.”
And when we train people or even talk to people about our product, what we normally find is that for those big, life-sustaining items that they’re supporting, they keep
a few extras on the truck. So, they keep a extra oxygen concentrator, or an extra vent. And so because the staff can see the inventory in that truck, they know what’s already spoken for or committed, but they also know what’s in
that truck that’s on hand for those emergencies. So, they can start to leverage that and push in those urgent or last- minute deliveries right into their route.
HMEB: When does a provider start reviewing these sorts of IT solutions? In other words, when is a provid- er’s delivery organization big enough that it should start looking into this? Is there a scale issue, or is this really attainable for any provider?
Anderson: I think it’s all about priorities. In my mind, it’s attainable for any provider that has more than one delivery method going on. The more people that you start to add and certainly the more exceptions or the more urgent product lines that you wade into, if you are a really well-known provider in your community, meaning all the community that are referring people to you, then you’re dealing with the hospital and you’re dealing with those urgent situations. So I really think that this is for everyone. I can see where, still, some of the really small shops that just have one driver might be a little priced out. Some of these solutions are kind of new, and so what we love about technology is that as more people come in and start to compete, the price comes down.
For some of those really small providers, they might still think that it’s not worth the investment yet. But it’s defi- nitely something to keep an eye on. Because I would say probably the best value you’re going to find is by talking
to the provider that you’re using for any of your other pieces of technology. Even if you don’t have an inventory management system but you have something for revenue cycle management, or your front-end, your patient-account management, it’s a very real possibility that those people are developing into that area. And they already know you and trust you, and likewise, they will probably give you the best deal. So, we say, start shopping even if you’re not completely sure that you need this yet. n
Management Solutions | Technology | Products hme-business.com | August/September 2019 | HMEBusiness 15