Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, USA

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, USA

A powerful expenditure control system for the largest not-for-profit hospital on the West Coast of the USA.

500 physicians

Department employees

Members of the public who use the dining halls

The Challenge

• To take control of expenditure on doctors’ subsidized meals.
• To replace stored value cards and the inconvenience of manual reload at a reload station.
• To prevent abuse of doctors’ lunch subsidies
• Management wanted to be able to ‘shout’ lunch for non subsidized staff or volunteers.
• The funds on the current cards were not secure, so anyone who found a card could help themselves to free food.
• Reducing cash handling and associated costs in the dining room.

The Solution

Supervisor Net, 13 Monitor MB20 terminals

The Result

Monitor’s card system caps the funds available for each doctor to spend on meals in the dining areas. The hospital now knows its exposure in meal subsidies and the doctors’ departments can now account for the cost of the meal. Previously the hospital never knew how much money was out there to be spent on food at any one time. Instead of having to return to reload stations to load credit on the cards, funds are automatically loaded “real-time” to the card via the Supervisor Net network. Around 500 doctors use a card which accesses an account with a monthly subsidy for meals. They swipe this through a card reader in a VIP line, and the food service company uses the data to bill the hospital for the food, and take a set amount from the doctors’ card. Supervisor Net charges each doctor’s card for the actual cost of the meal, or it can charge the card a predetermined amount, such as $7 for a set meal or a tray of food. The total subsidy is capped, with any unspent amount accumulating. Monitor’s interface between Micros System’s cash registers and its Supervisor Net expense management system gives the food service company detailed accounting of each transaction and simple billing. The hospital sells the Monitor cards to other staff and members of the public in the dining room, removing the need for cash. Management can buy lunch for nurses for instance, by giving gift cards.

“As an approved partner of HID, we have successfully integrated the hospital’s staff ID to the Monitor system and thereby creating a one card solution.” – Brian Kennedy, SmartVend