Dispatching
The Capacity IQ® Transport application uses two methods to assess how patient transport jobs should be dispatched to employees (transporters). These methods are used by transport coordinators to ensure efficient and timely assignment of transport jobs. The methods are:
Transporter Ready Initiated Dispatching
Job Initiated Dispatching
The assessment processes do not occur when a transporter self-dispatches or selects a round trip. For more information, see:
Self Dispatching
Round Trip Dispatching
Where you can find this feature: Capacity IQ® Transport application.
How Dispatching Works
Functionality
Transporter Ready Initiated Dispatching
Transporter ready initiated dispatching occurs when a transporter indicates (through the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system) that they have completed a transport job, returned from a lunch period or break, or signed in for the workday. At these times, the transporter becomes available to be dispatched to a transport job. This method uses a two-phase process to match jobs to transporters:
Job Segregation
Optimum Job Selection
Factors influencing the dispatch decision include:
Whether the job is in an exclusive zone
Transporter's fixed or exclusive assignment in that zone
Assist status or Priority 0 (urgent)
Weighted Job Priority (WJP)
Proximity Match Value (PMV)
Appointment status
Equipment Possession Matrix (EPM) if equipment matching is enabled
Item transport jobs for item types associated with item override zones are handled differently.
Job Segregation
Each time transporters sign in for the workday, after a break or lunch period, or complete a job, they are placed in Avail (Available) status and will be offered the next best-matching transport job based on the following logic:
The application examines if the transport job's origin zone is exclusive.
If the job begins or ends in an exclusive zone, the transporter must have an assignment in that zone to be eligible.
If the job is in a non-exclusive zone, the transporter must have an assignment in either the origin or destination zone, or a non-exclusive assignment in the zones they are signed in to, or an all assignment.
Notes:
If no transporters are signed in to an exclusive zone, it is considered a regular zone.
Differences between fixed and variable assignment types do not influence dispatching.
The setting "Include Assist/Priority 0 Outside of Fixed Assignment" determines if Priority 0 or assist jobs from outside a fixed employee’s assignment area should be included.
Jobs are grouped by order of importance: Assist status (most important), Priority 0 job (second most important), any other type of transport job (third most important).
Optimum Job Selection
After Job Segregation, the application calculates a dispatch value (DV) for all eligible jobs based on:
Proximity Match Values
Weighted Job Priority
Equipment Possession Matrix (if equipment matching is enabled)
Appointment Factor
For more information about each of these factors and the calculation of the dispatch value, see About Dispatch Sets.
Job Initiated Dispatching
Job initiated dispatching matches available transporters with pending transport jobs or transport jobs that require assistance and sends a message to the notification devices of the transporters requesting that they call in and accept the jobs.
Item transport jobs for item types associated with item override zones are handled differently. For more information, see About Item Override Zones.
Note: When transporters are signing in to the IVR and are prompted for a notification device IVR ID, they may press # instead of entering a notification device IVR ID. Transporters who do not have fixed notification device assignments and do not enter a notification device IVR ID when signing in to the IVR cannot be notified to call the IVR to accept jobs through job initiated dispatching.
Job initiated dispatching determines how jobs are matched to transporters based on:
The amount of time the transporters have been in Avail (Available) status.
Automatic assessment of the transporter's location based on their location when they completed the previous job.
The number of minutes (configured in the Admin Tool component or in Admin > Settings > Capacity Management) after which another message for the same job will be sent to an available transporter (if the transporter who received the original message did not respond and the job still needs to be attended to).
The minimum number of minutes (configured in the Admin Tool component or in Admin > Settings > Capacity Management) after which a transporter who has not responded to a message can be paged again (either for the same job or a different job).
Job initiated dispatching is triggered by:
A new pending, on-demand transport job request.
A request for assistance on a transport job that is in Dispatched or In Progress status.
The intervals at which Capacity IQ® Transport checks to match available transporters to jobs are configured in the Admin Tool component or in Admin > Settings > Capacity Management with a setting called Number of Minutes that Should Elapse Between Avail (Available) Sweeps. TeleTracking Technologies representatives can help your organization configure this setting. After the process of matching jobs to transporters starts, Capacity IQ® Transport looks at the minimum number of minutes (configured in the Admin Tool component or in Admin > Settings > Capacity Management) after which a transporter who has not responded to a page or message can be paged again (either for the same job or a different job). This setting is called Number of Minutes Before Next Avail (Available) Page Received. It compares this setting to the time of the transporter's last page or message before it determines whether an employee should be matched with a job. The time at which the last page or message regarding the job was sent is also considered and compared to a setting called Number of Minutes Before Next Avail (Available) Page Sent to determine if it is time to page a transporter about this job again. For more information about configuring these settings, see Configuring Workflow Settings in the Admin Tool or Admin > Settings > Capacity Management online help.
Self Dispatching
Transporters who have the Self Dispatch permission (available in a group associated with the application) can select a specific transport job to Capacity IQ® Transport which they want to be dispatched. For example, a transporter learns that there is a job whose origin is close to their current location and self-dispatches to the job.
Note: When a transporter is offered a job through the IVR system either when signing in for the day or after completing another transport job, the self-dispatching option is available as Option 5. If the transporter is in Avail (Available) status when calling the IVR system, the self-dispatching option is available as Option 4.
Round Trip Dispatching
Transporters who have the round trip permission can select to wait for a patient that they have taken to a destination, and then return that patient to the origin. There is no need to create a transport job request to return the patient to the origin.