It’s a (digital) numbers game
Here’s a question for you: How many actual phone numbers do you still remember?
Twenty years ago, I could probably reel off forty, or so, from memory, and by necessity. What a waste of time to have to look up a number every time you needed to make a different call. But conversely, how many phone numbers can the average person actually memorize and actively recall?
I would memorize the numbers that were most important to me, and the ones that I called most often (you know who you are) and I would largely rely on some cutting edge technology of the day to look up the rest. Remember the Rolodex? If you still use one, pardon me, for the reminder.
So how many phone numbers can an average person memorize? I really don’t know.
My guess would be less than twenty (if you caught that, yes, what can I say? I consider myself above average) but unless someone decides to conduct a scientific study to measure it, the point is largely moot -- because of digital technology. Today we click names to make calls, There's not a whole lot of demand for remembering phone numbers.
As we observe, in businessmankind’s progression, from candles to oil lamps to gaslights to ubiquitous electricity, to light and ultimately power their operations; or, perhaps, more apropos to this conversation, as we consider the evolution of the printed word, from page to telegraph, and then to voice and image transmission, through radio, telephone, television, and the internet -- we change and adapt to new technology because it works better and faster than its predecessor.
By now, even the loudest of the early naysayers and the latest of the late adopters, alike, (who thought online shopping was a fad, and online banking can not be trusted, and video stores will never die) have got to admit that they’ve been largely dragged (whether by the heels, or kicking and screaming) into the digital information age. (Even the Luddites have a website.) So why is this?
Simply put, because it works so well. They’ve had a taste of disruptive technology, technology that, by its very nature, systematically changes the order and delivery of information. And nothing is ever the same again. There is no going back.
Think about it. Who spends the time and money to send expensive telegrams, in the age of secure email. Only someone with time and money to burn. Why send smoke signals when you can text?
But here’s the surprise twist: As the president of MedTRACC, I spend a lot of time in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, and I meet employees, from equipment managers, all the way to the C-Suite, who are collaborators and conspirators in an activity that I find truly mystifying, and I will report it here first. My most shocking find: disruptive non-technology, specifically regarding DME.
It is amazing to me the number of facilities that I encounter every day that entrust their most critical operations to leading-edge softwares, and yet continue to track durable medical equipment by hand. Explain that to me, please?
Do you want to talk disruption? Does a treatment nurse, trying to requisition facility-owned equipment that no one can seem to locate, while an equipment manager searches room by room for MIA/DME, and another calls to rent, yet another piece of expensive equipment, to cover one that’s already owned, listed in inventory, but missing, qualify as disruptive?
If it were my business, I'd say that it does.
And this is precisely how a common phenomenon that I call runaway rentals begins to occur. DMETRACC software, by design, puts an end to this problem.
In business, the bottom line is the 'numbers game.' It's the one you absolutely have to win. Today, that means going digital. Why should you treat your DME with less attention, respect (and technology) than any other aspect of your business? You shouldn’t. Because it's costing you dollars, and it just doesn’t make sense.
And eliminating runaway rentals is just one way that MedTRACC software can help hospitals and SNFs streamline operations, thereby improving efficiencies, and saving both money and time.
If I’ve offended anyone, I apologize (and I admit, I still use a small Rolodex, occasionally). But if any of the aforementioned rings true, or, worse yet, sounds painfully familiar, we should probably talk.
