At Emeritus Clinical Solutions, they believe that hospital beds are the most critical medical devices in a health care setting. While others may overlook them, Emeritus loves and cares for hospital beds, recognizing their paramount importance. They have proven there is a better way to provide hospital bed and stretcher maintenance services, one that prioritizes the needs of hospitals and their patients. The company’s innovative approach revolutionizes these services, making them more patient-centric and efficient.
Emeritus Clinical Solutions Senior Sales Manager Webb Clark recently shared more information about the company.
Q: What are some of the services and products you offer?
A: Our staple program is called Bed Maintenance 2.0. This is an outsourced solution with a truly in-house feel. Emeritus will place technicians on-site at your facility full time Monday to Friday to run the patient bed and stretcher program. The Always-On-Site methodology returns hundreds of labor hours back to the HTM department so your biomeds can focus on modalities that they’re a) vested in and b) have actual expertise in. Emeritus will stock OEM parts on-site and your brand neutral, bed expert is working out of your hospital full time. This approach completely erases wait times for parts and service. Travel fees are also non-existent. This is a full-service program, so all costs associated with PMs and repairs are paid for via a firm-fixed monthly rate.
Q: How does your company stand out in the medical equipment field?
A: 1) We are an HTM company solely focused on patient beds and stretcher maintenance. Furthermore, we are reinventing the way bed maintenance is thought of and performed. 2) Case in point: Always-On-Site. Nobody shows up in a van a week after a service request is placed – Emeritus is already there. Thus, even the back-and-forth correspondence associated with scheduling service is eliminated. Likewise, the need to approve hundreds of POs for parts and services throughout the calendar year is gone. 3) Operations. This is something I can’t overstate enough – from an operations standpoint, Emeritus is exceptional. One of the biggest frustrations HTM managers experience with their vendors is found in communication, or lack thereof. Services can be finicky because of the inherent human element. Managers rely on clear expectations, communication and robust reporting. I would put Emeritus’ operations against any OEM or ISO in the HTM field.
Q: What is on the horizon for your company?
A: We are constantly looking to improve our processes. We do this by examining what our competitors offer, then go where they’re not willing to go. Beds exist in a no-man’s land. In roughly half the hospitals in the United States, bed maintenance is assumed by HTM. The other half of the time, beds will fall under the Facilities Department. With that in mind, we have developed a Targeted Transporter Training Program to help hospitals who have transport teams with high turnover. This education program requires quarterly, or even monthly, training. When we talk about cost savings, Emeritus will go well beyond just doing the repairs required. We are looking to cut the head off the snake and reduce the actual number of repairs required. Your Emeritus bed-technician is not only an extension of your HTM team; but will also maintain rapport with Facilities, Nursing, EVS, and transporters so that the bed and stretcher program is run efficiently. Recently, the Joint Commission has introduced new regulations pertaining to mattress management. Emeritus is already performing mattress audits on behalf of EVS teams, and we are fine-tuning a comprehensive mattress management program to boot.
Q: Is there anything else you would like TechNation readers to know?
A: I would challenge your readers to consider how effectively they’re currently tackling bed maintenance. Patient beds do not get the respect they deserve. Forty years ago, a bed was little more than a glorified shopping cart with a mattress on top. Today, beds are outfitted with bed exit alarms, inflatable mattresses, nurse call systems, etc. They’re not the beds of yesteryear and they shouldn’t be treated as such. There is no device at your facility that affects the inpatient experience more. Biomeds are the silent heroes of health care. Your patients don’t understand if the sterilizers in the basement aren’t humming. But they do know if they slept comfortably. They will remember if nursing staff had to move them into another room in the middle of the night because of a broken bed. Furthermore, their families will know and the reputation of your hospital largely hinges on this experience.
We find that too many in-house programs are run inefficiently. Your technicians did not enter this field to work on beds and stretchers. Frankly, most of them loathe working on beds. If you’re not invested in advancing your technicians’ careers, rest assured – someone else will. Hiring good biomeds is tougher than ever. While beds may feel rudimentary enough to make first call on, you must ask yourself – where does this lead? Often, it leads to a wormhole of trial and error parts ordering. This is how beds rack up in our hallways which invites scrutiny from leadership and regulatory agencies. We find in-house programs lean on OEM support 40-70% of the time and there is a great cost associated with module level repairs.
Traditionally, HTM managers reserve full-service solutions for OR, SPD or imaging equipment. Equipment that, when it breaks, the hospital starts cancelling cases immediately resulting in loss of revenue. By contrast, there are a lot of redundancies when it comes to your bed and stretcher inventory. So why full service? Because an ineffective bed program is a waste of time and money. And the redundancies only compound this error. HTM’s bandwidth is precious. If your technicians are not proficient in this modality, they’re wasting hundreds (in some cases over a thousand) labor hours annually. Couple this with how money is being spent. How often are your technicians leaning on OEM support for troubleshooting or even on-site services? Ask yourself, is this truly an in-house program?
Emeritus is on a mission to reinvent bed maintenance. Bed Maintenance 2.0 is a program that’s meant to optimize your workflow in an often overlooked and misunderstood modality.
For more information, visit emerituscs.com.
