Now that you have defined the components of a community, established your provider network, and selected a transportation model, it is time to put them together to form your personalized Transportation Community.
But no community can function without help. Below, you will find some methods of evaluating and optimizing your performance.
Measuring transportation is crucial for achieving the best outcomes in patient rides. Recognizing trends and addressing issues is essential. Often, the most impactful variables are Performance and Engagement.
Performance
Likely, the most prominent group of variables is performance. Measuring performance is crucial to ensuring your preferred transportation companies do what they said they would.
| Measurement Area | Explanation | Key Questions to Answer | Business Implication |
| Average Lead Time | The average amount of time or advance notice provided by ride requesters to transportation providers before a requested pickup time. | How much advanced notice are ride requesters within the hospital providing to transportation providers? Is it feasible to move a patient at the requested pickup time based on the timing of the ride request? | Providing transportation providers with sufficient lead time allows for effective schedule adjustments and better planning on the transportation side, contributing to smoother and more efficient patient transportation. |
| Average ETA Deviation | The average difference between a requested pickup time and the time a transportation company commits to arriving. | Is the transportation provider consistently committing to arrive within the requested pickup times? For example, if a ride was requested at 2 pm and the transportation provider commits to arriving at 3 pm, the ETA deviation is 1 hour for that specific instance. | Reducing the average ETA deviation is vital for healthcare systems, as it minimizes patient discharge delays. Ensuring transportation providers can reliably meet scheduled pickup times is critical in streamlining patient discharge processes and overall hospital operations. |
| On-time performance: average requested start time to actual pickup | The average difference between the requested pickup time and the actual time of arrival by a transportation company. | Is the transportation provider consistently meeting the requested pickup times? For example, if a ride was requested at 2 pm and the transportation provider committed to arriving at 3 pm, but arrives at 4 pm, then the average requested start time to actual pickup is 2 hours. | On-time performance is a critical indicator of a transportation provider’s reliability. Ensuring that transportation providers consistently meet or closely align with requested pickup times is essential for minimizing patient discharge delays and optimizing hospital operations. |
Engagement
Engagement is a set of variables that represent the responsiveness of the transportation company. Often, care teams care less about the exact pickup making their requested time; rather, they just need to know when you can be there. Teams need to know that now to make clinical decisions for the patient in the future.
| Measurement Area | Explanation | Key Questions to Answer | Business Implication |
| Percentage Fulfilled of total completed rides | The percentage of rides successfully executed among those offered to the transportation company. | Is the transportation provider consistently reliable in responding to your requests and managing the required volume of rides? | Balancing a healthcare system’s transportation needs with the available resources can be a complex task. Recognizing and supporting transportation providers capable of handling a significant portion of your ride volume can lead to optimized fleet operations within a given region. |
| Percentage of total rides with action taken | The percentage of rides that a transportation company has responded to, either by confirming or rejecting the ride request. | How responsive is the transportation company in promptly communicating their willingness to accept or reject a ride request? | The percentage of total rides with action taken reflects the transportation provider’s level of responsiveness and communication efficiency. Having insight into a transportation provider’s availability is crucial for redirecting ride requests to alternative providers when necessary, ensuring a smooth patient transportation process. |
Optimizing the model
In order to optimize your transportation community effectively, it’s essential to continuously assess data and performance metrics. Here are some metrics to consider:
- Alignment with KPIs: Begin by evaluating if the performance metrics above align with your established community model’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
- Interventions: If the data reveals that certain metrics are not aligning with your KPIs, consider implementing interventions such as process improvements or introducing incentives to transportation providers.
- Feedback Loop: Establish a feedback loop with transportation providers, hospital staff, and patients. Their input can be valuable in refining the model, identifying issues, and implementing improvements.
By continuously monitoring and refining your transportation community model, you can ensure that it remains adaptive to your healthcare system’s changing needs and challenges.
To dive deeper into optimizing your performance, check out our ebook.
