As Hospitals look inward for new business, elevator buttons are realized as a revenue generator.
Skit Tjänsten, a leading patient management group, recently concluded a 5 year study on medical facility lost profits.
The goal of the study was to balance the number of patients checking out (ie: lost business) with new business. Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) was determined to be the most affordable technique.
The campaign Elevinate is rolling out to industry journals and trade shows. When loved ones come visit a hospital they rarely contribute to the profit. Now friends and family members are infected and become customers or patients. According to Skit Tjänsten's Director of North America Infectious Disease, this will balance out the negative impact that cures and healing has on the bottom line.
Infection is quick and usually unnoticed for days.
Most standard elevator panels are already designed to facilitate bacterial transmission. The objective of this campaign is to increase the prevalence of bacterial colonization on elevator buttons in large urban hospitals.
During development, test swabs were taken from 2 interior buttons (buttons for the ground floor and one randomly selected upper-level floor) and 2 exterior buttons (the “up” button from the ground floor and the “down” button from the upper-level floor). The results were fantastic. The colonization of elevator buttons was 61% (95% confidence interval 52%–70%). No significant differences in colonization prevalence were apparent in relation to location of the buttons, day of the week, or panel position within the elevator. Coagulase-negative staphylococci were the most common organisms cultured, whereas Enterococcus and Pseudomonas species were infrequent.
Conclusion: A low cost application of disease on hospital elevator buttons is projected to increase revenue; keeping beds occupied 23% more in 2016. All this will be done while keeping patient costs up.
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