Getting there

The UF Health Shands Patient Transportation team receives more than 5,400 requests each week to get our patients to the right location, whether to a different floor or from their wheelchair to their bed. They collaborate with our nursing units and staff to coordinate patients’ internal transportation during their stay at our Archer Road hospitals.

“A member of the Patient Transportation team is one of the first employees that a patient interacts with. They play an integral role in the patient experience,” said Kay Anderson, UF Health Shands Patient Transportation and Lift Team senior director. “Transporters welcome them and say goodbye as well. In between, they help with the overall patient throughput at our hospitals.”
While transport attendants make up a majority of the 126-member team, specimen couriers, elevator operators, lobby attendants, lift team technicians and dispatchers all ensure our patients reach their destinations safely.

In EPIC, clinical teams request patient transport and lift assistance. These requests populate the EPIC Transport Command Center Board. Dispatchers assign each task to a transport attendant or lift team technician based on established priority protocols.

After a transport attendant or lift team technician receives a request, he or she retrieves the right equipment, if necessary, and proceeds to the patient’s location.

Upon arrival, a transport attendant or lift team technician transports the patient to another area or helps the patient move about his or her room.

When a patient is ready for discharge, a member of the health care team enters a discharge transport request into EPIC. Upon receipt, a dispatcher assigns a transport attendant to retrieve a wheelchair and take the patient from the unit to the lobby.

If a patient needs to travel to a different floor, a transport attendant calls the elevator operator to expedite the transport process. The elevator operator then takes the transporter and patient to the desired floor.

To stay on schedule, a lobby attendant helps the transport attendant and patient when they arrive on the first floor to leave our facility. The lobby attendant waits with the patient to help him or her safely get into their vehicle.

For teams that don’t use our pneumatic tube system to transport specimens between locations, the Patient Transportation team assigns a specimen courier to retrieve the item and deliver it to the specified lab.