Patient Transportation Management Solution
How DecisivEdge Helped a Behavioral Healthcare Provider Streamline Patient Transportation and Admissions
AT A GLANCE
Transportation or fleet management to support incoming, current and outgoing patient needs is an essential service of most behavioral healthcare providers. Yet for many, it’s one of the least automated areas in the admission and care process.
It’s a problem that one behavioral health organization recognized and sought to change by partnering with DecisivEdge to find a way to streamline and automate an historically manual process with a transportation management solution.
The behavioral health company’s care advocates rely on the Salesforce customer relationship management platform to manage incoming and existing patient care.
Enter one-touch transportation scheduling (Salesforce Field Service Lightning), an application developed by the DecisivEdge team that works within Salesforce Field Service Lightning to support patient pickup and drop-off activities via a transportation management solution.
The Challenge
For many behavioral healthcare providers, patient transportation remains one of the most manual and disconnected parts of the admissions and care process. Transportation teams often rely on spreadsheets, emails, and direct calls between drivers and patient advocates to coordinate pickups and drop-offs.
This fragmented process creates operational inefficiencies and, more importantly, can directly impact patient care. Delayed pickups, scheduling confusion, or missed communications can cause incoming patients to disengage before receiving treatment—placing additional strain on care advocates and admissions teams trying to reschedule and reconnect with patients in need.
One behavioral healthcare organization recognized these challenges and partnered with DecisivEdge to modernize and automate its transportation operations.
The Solution
DecisivEdge developed a scalable Patient Transportation Management Solution built within Salesforce Field Service Lightning to streamline inbound and outbound patient transportation.
The solution integrates directly into the organization’s Salesforce CRM environment, enabling care advocates to schedule transportation without leaving the admissions workflow. With a single click, patient information such as contact details and pickup location is automatically captured and transferred into the transportation scheduling process.
The system intelligently identifies the nearest available vehicle based on location, distance, and availability, allowing teams to quickly schedule immediate or future pickups. Care advocates can also prioritize urgent requests through built-in escalation workflows tailored to the organization’s operational requirements.
To further improve coordination, DecisivEdge implemented a mobile application for drivers that provides real-time appointment management and status updates. Drivers can instantly update the system when they are en route, have arrived, or have completed a pickup or drop-off. Patients also receive automated notifications and live tracking updates, creating a smoother and more transparent experience.
Key Capabilities
One-Touch Transportation Scheduling
Care advocates can schedule patient transportation directly from Salesforce with minimal manual input.
Intelligent Vehicle Assignment
The platform automatically assigns the most optimal available driver based on proximity and scheduling availability.
Real-Time Driver & Patient Updates
Drivers manage appointments through a mobile app while patients receive automated pickup notifications and tracking updates.
Flexible & Scalable Architecture
The solution is designed to adapt to unique transportation workflows, escalation rules, and organizational needs.
Rapid Deployment
The platform can typically be implemented and operational within 30–90 days depending on scope and scale.
Operational Impact
The new Patient Transportation Management Solution significantly improved operational efficiency for both admissions and transportation teams.
By automating scheduling and reducing manual coordination, care advocates were able to focus more on patient engagement rather than logistics. Transportation teams shifted from reactive coordination to exception-based management, allowing them to better manage staffing and escalation scenarios.
The organization also gained valuable operational visibility into transportation performance, including pickup response times, driver wait times, and overall scheduling efficiency—helping leadership identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
Most importantly, the solution helped reduce delays in patient transportation and improved the organization’s ability to connect patients with care faster and more reliably.
Results & Benefits
- Faster patient pickup response times
- Reduced manual scheduling effort
- Improved admissions coordination
- Better operational visibility and reporting
- Real-time communication between teams, drivers, and patients
- Scalable transportation workflows built within Salesforce