Practice Patience in the Health-Care Market
Slow changes are sure to bring greater efficiency.
For a long time, distributors that tended the health-care market doled out many a traditional form. Carbonized and unit set configurations were as basic to medical professionals as antiseptics and aspirin. It seemed that the dawn of the Internet and electronic options had little effect, if any, on good old hospital procedure. But the prognosis for health-care forms systems is changing as medical professionals begin to move into the electronic age. At least this is the opinion of Charles Graham, president of Graham Data Supplies, Amarillo, Texas.
"In the past five to eight years, the market has changed drastically. It has moved away from traditional to laser-based and label products," he said. "They are omitting continuous forms and substituting laser forms that are blank on the front with terms and conditions on the back."
Laser-style sheets are beginning to show up in the admitting area of hospitals, added Graham, while other departments are working with a variety of electronic forms—including some on diskettes or computer networks.
Since 1977 Graham Data Supplies has serviced the health-care market as a primary or secondary client base and now provides medical forms, such as filing supplies, X-ray jackets and patient kits, through its subsidiary company, Health Print. For a long time, said Graham, health forms production has been fairly consistent and dependable. Recently, however, Graham is witnessing a major transition in this market, which brings the company $8 million a year.
Said Graham, "There is a lot of work toward achieving industry standards, but the whole electronic forms industry is fragmented and hospitals are still trying to adjust."
Such adjustments entail costly computer networking which probably won't be fully effective for another three to eight years, said Charles Bryant, CEO and president of Decatur, Alabama-based Medical and Industrial Marketing.
He noted that until hospitals are equipped to print out forms in requisite departments such as ad-missions, labs, dietary and charting, using laser forms is not a cost-effective option. "With laser-printed forms, workers have to print five copies of the same form, which is then dispersed to the appropriate locations," Bryant explained. "This wears out printers pretty quickly and a laser printer costs more than dot matrix in terms of supplies and repairs."
While some health care clients are reverting back to continuous forms to cut costs, Bryant sees hospitals consolidating in other ways. "We see a lot of hospitals cutting costs one way or another. They've tried to consolidate forms, which works
to a certain extent, but when a change on the form is needed it winds up creating a lot of labor costs," he said.
For example, Bryant cited a regional hospital that recently wanted to produce all patient charting forms in one multi-part unit set, with each part being a different form. This saved time in making up in-patient charts, with one addressograph ma-chine identifying all parts. However, when one form needed to be changed, the entire packet was affected—resulting in a large investment of time and money.
Graham is also finding cost-cutting measures in the health-care field. Many hospitals, he said, are aligning themselves with buying groups to process form orders. "Health care is ex-periencing a major reduction
in employment—not in patient care, but in support services which allows them to outsource. As a result, we have to accept orders from buying groups," said Graham.
Though it seems the health-care industry is experiencing slow progress, David Conway, vice president of marketing, GBS, North Canton, Ohio, said it is not lagging as much as some may think.
"There has actually been an ongoing evolutionary process in health care. We have seen most customers transcending from carbon interleaf and unit sets to cut-sheet configurations. And others are moving beyond that."
In fact, GBS is currently working with a customer who plans to migrate from cut sheets to electronic forms within 12 months.
"They are going to implement an online Internet-based information and commodity management system through DocuNet," said Conway. "This way they can log on and publish, revise and save forms to local PCs." In addition, the same client has introduced an EasyID system that provides the control and printing of pertinent registration documents, wristbands and labels.
Though Conway admits this market needs time to perfect its changeover in forms systems, he noted one characteristic that will ease the pain. "The health-care industry is fairly well defined—more so than some other markets," he said. "So applications developed for one customer generally work in a similar fashion for another."
While those in the health arena strive for better efficiency, less paper and a smooth operating electronic system, Bryant advises distributors to really understand how the health-care system works.
"It's important to know how a hospital's process works. That way distributors can make suggestions for improvement, which can only help in their transition to electronic systems," he said.
Having gone through an intensive health-care forms training program through a former em-ployer, Bryant knows the importance of training. "We've seen competitors try to talk our customers into doing away with an older system when they really weren't ready for it," said Bryant. "That same customer wound up switching back to dot matrix to save money."
"Hospitals will see savings in the long run when their systems are fully networked. Once that occurs, only the appropriate in-formation will be printed in the departments needing it," added Bryant.
"They know where they want to be and we want to help them get there, it just takes time," he concluded.
By Sharon R. Cole
- People:
- Charles Bryant
- Charles Graham
- Places:
- Amarillo, Texas