Case Study

The Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), with 9600 members of staff, are a public medical institution under the constitution of Geneva and their mission is brought forth with the following aims:

To treat
HUG meet the population’s treatment needs :

• In the field of proximity treatment, being a general public hospital

• In the field of specialized treatment and reference treatment , being a university hospital offering specific professional abilities and high-technology medical techniques
   

To teach
HUG, partners of the Faculty of Medicine, of the university-level training schools (HES), and of other vocational schools, offer a learning and teaching opportunity for health professionals. The post-graduate training constitutes one of the main parts of the HUG mission.

To research
Clinical research is an integral part of the HUG mission and takes place in close collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine.

To carry out this mission, the HUG staff share and rely on the following values and convictions :  

At HUG, the patient comes first

HUG are one of the partners involved in the life of the inhabitants of Geneva and its surrounding area throughout their lives. All the professional staff of HUG is convinced that public service medicine is, above all, a quality medical service available to all.

At HUG, the feeling for duty is essential

The feeling for duty shown by the HUG staff is an equity and safety guarantee in treatment for the patient and his familiars.

At HUG, quality and safety are a priority

HUG have the vocation of maintaining its quality and safety standards in several areas such as :

• Husbanding the services in order to make them more efficient, to use the resources with care and to keep under control the costs of the hospital public service : in other words, management efficiency.

In order to reach these goals, the staff work uniform management has always been of great importance for HUG, both from the hygiene point of view and as far as work conditions and efficiency are concerned.

HUG now owns 7 Metalprogetti systems for the automatic management, distribution and deposit of work uniforms for all its staff, the first of which was installed in the Opéra building in 1996.

The Metalprogetti system carries out the distribution of the Hospitals’ staff work uniforms 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, supplying a quick and efficient service.

THE CHALLENGE

In the past, some of HUG’s wards were equipped with semi-automatic Autovalet systems. The distribution of the work uniforms occurred automatically, but in other phases the presence of staff was required, which represented a waste of time and resources. Indeed, many operations were manual, like for example the restocking of the system in items: each time the clean garments came back from the laundry, they had to by hung by hand onto the semi-automatic system or else placed in wardrobes or on shelves provided for the purpose.

In other wards, the distribution of work uniforms occurred entirely manually thanks to the presence of staff at certain times during the day.

Besides, the management of staff uniforms was on a customized basis : each member of staff had an allowance of a certain number of garments which he only could use ; this meant that the hospital had to own at least 5-7 kits for each employee.

The need for a modernization of the Hospitals’ staff work uniform distribution gave birth to the idea of using a completely automatic system. HUG were well suited for this kind of installation because of their size and logistics : indeed, the car park and the changing rooms were in an ideal position from which staff could easily enter the building, retrieve their clean uniform and get changed in the changing rooms nearby.

THE SOLUTION

The Metalprogetti system was first spotted by one of the hospital managers in a dry-cleaning shop in Geneva ; interested and intrigued by the system, he decided to find out who its manufacturer was.

The realization of a similar system, adapted to the specific needs of HUG, began in 1995.

The main problems to be solved were the flow of garments which was both too numerous and uncontrollable, the slow distribution times as well as the labour costs connected to the distribution, and the important space requirements for the management, conveying and distribution of these work uniforms.

After a long and careful analysis of the project, Metalprogetti supplied a proposal which was considered as being suitable and feasible considering the number of employees to be handled and the space available. Actually, it meant realizing a prototype of a new system.

From the mechanic point of view, the system was similar to those implemented in dry-cleaning shops, but the automatisms and the software were different. After a certain number of modifications and adaptations which also took into account HUG’s requirements, the system was developed and the prototype became a product in its own right.

THE PROJECT

From 1996 to date, the first system having proved itself a great success, 7 Metalprogetti systems were installed in different buildings and sites of these Hospitals:

1)   1996 Opéra Building: the first system installed, it handles the distribution of customized work uniforms ; it handles 3000 kits with 5 distribution gates serving 600 users each.

2)    1998 Appui Building (1200 users);

3)    2002 Loex Lanance Building (500 users);

4)    2003 Hôpital des enfants Building (550 users)

5)    2003 Gériatrie Building 3 Chêne (500 users)

6)    2006 Soins continus CESCO Building (500 users)

7)    2007 Réhabilitation Beau Séjour Building (350 users)

The installation of the first Metalprogetti system in the Opéra Building in 1996 took one year from the first design to its implementation.

Here are some figures concerning the 7 Metalprogetti B2K installations at HUG used for the recovery of worn or soiled uniforms and the distribution of clean uniforms :

ü  12 clean garment distribution gates;

ü  9 worn/soiled garment recovery bins;

ü  An average of 600 users per distributor;

ü  28.000 garments handled on average weekly.

THE RESULTS

1.      Savings on the distribution and storage costs ;

2.      Distribution service carried out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week ;

3.      CENTRALIZED MANAGEMENT of the work uniforms thanks to the installation of the clean uniform distribution gates just next to the soiled garment deposit bins;

4.      Observance of health rules as the staff can change their uniforms several times a day if necessary ;

5.      Changeover from  uniform customized management (each employee used to be assigned 7 kits, now he only needs 3) to management by size, which is simpler and enables the hospital to limit its stocks;

6.      Improved turnover of work uniform stocks and possibility of restocking the system in clean garments according to which garments are missing on the distributor;

7.      Traceability of the single items thanks to their identification with an RFID chip, thus enabling an improved stock management.

In 2007, a finishing chain was installed at the Hospitals’ Laundry, using the same database as all the work uniform distribution systems installed in the different HUG buildings. This system enabled HUG to connect all the Metalprogetti systems to each other and to manage the entire garment flow more efficiently.  

HUG

Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève

www.hug-ge.ch