New York City Is Doing
Better With Less
by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
During the current fiscal crisis,
City agencies can’t
afford to operate at anything less than top efficiency. Over
the last year, we’ve met that challenge. We’ve
reduced City spending by $2.3 billion. And by making City government
more innovative, technologically adept, citizen-friendly and
better managed, we’ve improved many services New Yorkers
rely on.
Take health care. Under Health and
Hospitals Corporation President Dr. Ben Chu, our City’s
public hospitals have become national leaders in using technology
that improves patient services while also cutting taxpayer
costs. Last month, for example, HHC finished installing technology
that digitally creates and stores x-ray images at all its
facilities.
The effects are nothing short of revolutionary. In the past,
it typically took 24 to 48 hours for doctors to retrieve x-ray
images for examination. Today, the new Picture Archiving Communications
(PACS) system makes such images available within four minutes.
The images are sharper and more detailed; PACS also allows
doctors throughout the HHC system to review and consult on
the same image. By increasing productivity, PACS is expected
to save HHC some $11 million annually.
HHC also has instituted the systemwide computerized ordering
of prescriptions and lab tests. Test results are now available
in hours or, in emergency cases, even minutes. The possibility
of errors in prescribing medication has been dramatically reduced.
Bottom line: Patients get faster and better treatment at substantially
lower costs to the City.
More City services are also available
on-line. For example, potential adoptive parents can now
use the City’s web
site to learn about youngsters in foster care who need permanent,
loving homes. Senior citizens can find out about the range
of government benefits they qualify for. And in one quick visit
to www.nyc.gov/finance, you can pay water bills and property
and business taxes, track down a towed automobile, and pay-or
contest-parking tickets.
The City’s Department of Information Technology and
Telecommunications (DoITT) has helped introduce many of these
improvements. In addition, by sharing its computer infrastructure
with other City agencies, and by revising and renegotiating
the City’s telephone service plans, DoITT has saved taxpayers
millions of dollars this year.
We’ve instituted other cost-saving efficiencies that
don’t require anything more high-tech than a calculator
and a sense of basic fairness. Example: The City’s use
of vehicles. This year, we’ve taken more than 640 City
vehicles off the road and put them on the auction block. We’ve
also reduced the number of City parking permits by 30%, and
cut their duration in half. This unclogs congested City streets,
speeding the flow of traffic. And unless they’re on official
business, there’s no reason City vehicles can be parked
anyplace while millions of other drivers pay for their parking.
Our public safety agencies have written high-profile success
stories this year. Even with 2,000 fewer officers than a year
ago, the NYPD has kept crime rates going down, and the FDNY
has reduced its response time to fires.
Those aren’t isolated achievements. Many other City
agencies are not only doing more with less — they’re
doing better with less.#
