At a glance

At St. Olavs University Hospital, porters are responsible for completing around 700 work orders per day. The Find-My-Porter service by MazeMap could save approximately 2 minutes per work order

Problem

The work orders for porters in St. Olavs Hospital include moving patients between wards and departments, as well as transporting vital supplies and medical equipment across the 11 buildings with 5-6 floors each on the hospital campus. The porters are equipped with smartphones, which they use to access their next work order and report their progress. However, work orders were assigned to the first available porter, regardless of their location. This often resulted in delays of 15-20 minutes for porters who had to walk across the campus to complete their assigned tasks. The hospital needed a more efficient way to assign work orders and optimize porter workflows.

Solution

St. Olavs University Hospital sought the help of MazeMap, a company with expertise in delivering map and location-based services, including a navigation service for the hospital. MazeMap proposed a solution that used Cisco Spaces to track the porters' smartphones and present their location to the dispatcher. This allowed for more efficient assignment of work orders, with porters being assigned tasks based on their proximity to the location of the task.

According to Ronald Fillan, Seksjonsleder Patient Porters, the hospital estimated that if the solution could save an average of 2 minutes per work order, they would need 5 fewer full-time employees to complete the 700 daily work orders. After a period of development and testing, the solution was implemented.

"After a period of development and testing, the service was operational, and St. Olavs is estimating a saving of 5 man-years"

Ronald Fillan
Seksjonsleder Patient Porters, St. Olavs Hospital

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