Waiting for anything puts stress on a patient. Waiting for something as basic as a wheelchair makes no sense to them, and is therefore extremely frustrating. When we found that our greeters and orderlies were running around looking for wheelchairs every day, and I was e-mailing ‘wheelchair alerts’ twice a week to all 4200 employees, we knew we had a serious problem that could impact our customer satisfaction ratings. We quantified the problem and found that it was costing the hospital about $28,000 per month if we added up the employee time spent searching and e-mailing, not including the costs relating to lost and vandalized assets.”