HIRTA Deployment Overview

Health Connector is an innovative solution that addresses various bottlenecks associated with transportation access to healthcare for HIRTA communities. Some of these challenges are key reasons behind missed appointments or the unacceptable level of preventive or as-needed healthcare in the HIRTA service area. For this deployment, the HIRTA team is implementing a scalable and replicable solution that enables affordable access to transportation to healthcare for all travelers by resolving transportation access barriers with the use of advanced technologies.

This solution allows Dallas County residents without access to transportation who may be seeking a medical appointment to identify and book available transportation through a smart device (e.g., smartphone, tablet, etc.) application, and healthcare staff have access to the same trip planning and booking features, allowing them to schedule a patient’s transportation at the same time that a medical appointment is booked. Further, this solution includes information and wayfinding services to guide them at every step of their trip.

Approach – Project Challenges and Solutions

Health Connector is an innovative solution that utilizes advanced transportation technologies to improve healthcare access for Dallas County residents. This solution addresses the following key issues:

• Lack of Awareness About Available Transportation Options.

  Travelers have limited information on options beyond personal (or arranged via family or friends) transportation for medical trips. Health Connector provides a platform that allows customers to explore the availability of HIRTA and its partner vehicles through a “trip planning and discovery” feature.

• Lack of Integrated Booking and Trip Management Experience.

  Health Connector addresses a longstanding need to integrate transportation and healthcare services. Health Connector allows travelers, healthcare staff, and other authorized users to easily discover and book transportation services through the Health Connector app, online platform, or via phone, at the same time that they are scheduling a medical appointment, ensuring that access to transportation is not a barrier to accessing healthcare. Health Connector allows HIRTA staff to monitor changes to healthcare appointment times to ensure that Health Connector transportation services are updated as needed.

• Limited Capabilities with Current Transportation Modes.

  Apart from HIRTA vehicles, there are limited modes that can meet the needs of all travelers. HIRTA partners with local third-party providers (e.g., taxi companies) for added capacity to address the travel needs of Dallas County residents, as required.

• Limited Wayfinding Capabilities.

  Another missing link in medical transportation has been wayfinding both for locating the vehicle on arrival and wayfinding/navigating to the correct destination inside a facility upon arrival. Health Connector provides a fully functioning wayfinding experience for travelers.

Measuring Deployment Impact

Some of the key performance goals and targets for the Health Connector include:

• Reducing medical appointments deferred due to lack of transportation.

  The convenient access to transportation services provided by HIRTA, through Health Connector, helps Dallas County residents attend their medical appointments. One target for this performance goal is a 30 percent reduction in the number of missed medical appointments related to transportation access during the 18-month evaluation period.

  Thus far, HIRTA's Phase 3 deployment and operation has shown responsiveness in 80 percent of Dallas County residents indicating that transportation did not present a barrier to healthcare access after just six months of the Health Connector's launch, and an increase to 90 percent of the same opinion at 12 months.​

  Six months after the launch, HIRTA's Phase 3 deployment and operation has shown responsiveness in 80 percent of Dallas County residents indicating that transportation did not present a barrier to healthcare access, and an increase to 90 percent of the same opinion at 12 months.

• Reducing trips unfulfilled due to system unreliability.

  Health Connector is reducing the number of unfulfilled healthcare trip requests by improving system reliability through improved transportation management capabilities. Targets include at least a 30 percent reduction in the number of trips where HIRTA was unable to fulfill the traveler’s request after Health Connector is in use, and at least a 20 percent reduction in the number of missed trip events by travelers after Health Connector deployment.

• Improving travel-time prediction accuracy.

  Health Connector is assisting in calculating onboard (in-vehicle) travel time for a trip accurately and reliably at the time of scheduling. Travel time accuracy in this context refers to the number of minutes and seconds spent onboard, boarding, and alighting. The target for this goal is travel-time accuracy within 10 minutes of scheduled times 90 percent of the time, not counting delays due to external factors.

• Improving coordination among HIRTA, healthcare providers.

  Health Connector is automating tasks to minimize the time spent in coordinating a trip by HIRTA and partners. Healthcare partners now have access to the same trip booking and dispatching software as HIRTA dispatchers and are able to register customers and book or modify trips, as authorized. It is expected that Health Connector will help achieve a target of five minutes or less in coordination time for customers calling in to book their transportation appointment for healthcare needs.

Project Partners

HIRTA Links and Resources

• Visit the HIRTA Project Website