RTLS Significant For Improving Patient Care, Safety, Convenience

RTLS: Have you overlooked an important technology that could improve patient care, make your enterprise safer or make care more convenient?

Leading Analyst Firm report validates significance of real-time location and condition sensing technology (RTLS) and poses important questions to consider.

Gartner just released its Hype Cycle for Healthcare Provider Technologies and Standards for 2010. Gartner’s Hype Cycles assist healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) to assess the value and maturity of important IT technologies and associated standards that support their efforts to improve safety and care quality, reduce costs, increase revenue, and remain compliant. These Hype Cycles enable IT executives, healthcare strategists and technology planners to compare their understanding of a technology's evolution against Gartner's analysis of the technology's maturity, to decide whether or when to invest in a technology.

The entire report is very perceptive, and for Awarepoint, provides validation of the market messaging we have espoused for years: “real-time awareness of critical processes enables adjusting or correcting them and flexing resources in real time. A real-time health system strips latencies from enterprise business and clinical workflows, coordinates providers, and engages patients — all of which decrease delays, waste, and errors of omission and commission out of the system." We concur!

Here’s some of what Gartner has to say about the Real-time Enterprise and Location- and Condition-Sensing technologies:

Gartner defines the "real-time enterprise" as an enterprise that competes by using up-to-date information to progressively remove delays to the management and execution of its critical business processes. Analysts go on to say:

“The RTHS creates a real-time awareness of critical processes and enables adjusting or correcting them and flexing resources in real time. A real-time health system strips latencies from enterprise business and clinical workflows, coordinates providers, and engages patients — all of which decrease delays, waste, and errors of omission and commission out of the system.” Among other technologies, Gartner suggests the HDO must leverage:

• Location- and condition-sensing technologies. These technologies provide the real-time intelligence necessary to balance scheduling, workload and resource demands, while ensuring compliance with evidence-based practices.

As of July 2010, location-aware technologies are currently reflected as 2-5 years from mainstream adoption. High-accuracy location technologies include GPS, Wi-Fi, radio frequency identification (RFID), ultrawideband, infrared, ultrasound and ZigBee.

Gartner's Hype Cycles can be used to answer some very basic questions about the IT components HDOs have purchased and deployed. Gartner recommends that HDOs should ask themselves, "Is there anything here that we could be using — anything whose business value to us is worth the risk — anything that would benefit us or differentiate us from our competition?" And, for technologies later in the adoption Hype Cycle, HDOs should ask themselves, "Have we overlooked an important technology that could improve patient care or make the enterprise safer or make care more convenient?"

For hospitals considering adopting real-time location systems (RTLS), or those that have been “on the fence”, this a great report and poses important questions to consider. RTLS can offer rapid-impact results today in enterprise asset management, and, if the right solution is selected, offer scalability to meet the future needs of the real-time enterprise.

If you’re a healthcare CIO and Gartner client, you can access Gartner’s research at gartner.com.

RTLS Helps Communication & Patient Flow Challenges

Did you know that Patients Spent an Average of Four Hours, Seven Minutes in U.S. Emergency Departments in 2009, According to a New Report From Press Ganey?  Talk about an opportunity for RTLS to help communication and patient flow challenges!

Press Ganey, a leader in patient satisfaction insight, recently released a report addressing wait times in U.S. Emergency Departments (EDs). Their findings indicate that patients at U.S. Hospitals are experiencing the longest wait times in EDs since the report was first made available in 2002. Even so, it seems patient satisfaction has remained the same.

One of the reasons noted for the constant in patient satisfaction scores, despite increased wait times, is communication and information.

It seems patients are willing to wait for care as long as they are kept informed about wait times. Patients who waited more than four hours, but received "good" or "very good" information about delays were just as satisfied as patients who spent less than one hour in the emergency department.

Here's something to think about: Patient tracking with RTLS can provide powerful data to help hospitals maintain these levels of service and communication. Tagging patients and setting time-based alerts on wait times can be the trigger for proactive patient communication. This data can also identify bottlenecks and provide information for areas of improvement to reduce wait times in the first place.

Further, long wait times are not always indicative of the emergency department's performance. Instead, wait times are often symptoms of a larger hospital-wide issue that keeps patients in the emergency department when inpatient beds or testing equipment is not readily available -- another area where RTLS improvements can play a huge role. Knowing the location, status and movement of assets and resources, in real-time throughout the hospital enterprise, can improve patient flow and substantially reduce wait times. Equipment and supplies that aren't readily available when needed to care for patients can have significant impact on patient flow, as well as compromise patient and staff safety.

Patient satisfaction is only one aspect of why patient flow is so important.

How important is it to your hospital to get patients out of the ED as soon as you can and get them to the right level of care when it’s appropriate? What is the impact of a patient sitting in the ED because you can't yet locate the special piece of equipment he will need in the ICU and you can't move him until you do?  What happens if that patient is still in an ED bed and an ambulance arrives with patients desperately needing that bed?

The problem goes well beyond ED wait times: A patient who stays in an ICU bed because you can’t get the right equipment or bed for lower level care on a med/surg floor is costly.

You get the picture: moving patients through the system in a timely and cost effective way helps ensure no wasted time or resources.  It also impacts financial success and improvements in quality of care overall.

RTLS in Hospitals Interest High at AAMI 2010

AAMI 2010 – After the Show: Interest for RTLS in Hospitals Very High!

AAMI 2010 was held at the Tampa Convention Center and attracted ~1,000 attendees and 150 exhibiting companies. AAMI is the acronym for the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, an industry group dedicated to increasing the understanding, safety, and efficacy of medical instrumentation. Awarepoint and Skytron co-located a 10’ x 20’ booth which turned out to be a very good choice of space for this show.

We met hundreds of healthcare technology management and support professionals from hospitals across the country. You can check out some more pics from the show at Awarepoint’s Facebook page. Over 100 individuals were interested enough in RTLS to request additional information and follow-up. Both Awarepoint and Skytron sales representatives have their hands full in making sure everyone gets the additional information they requested. We couldn’t be happier!

As we described in a previous post [see AAMI 2010 Conference & Expo June 26-28, Tampa, FL], a couple of highlights of the show included both Awarepoint’s Product Showcase presentation and our Hot Giveaway – a $1,500 gift card from Starbucks.

The Product Showcase conducted by George Sun (VP of Sales, Awarepoint) was entitled: “Keep Everything On-Site, In-Sight: Nothing Makes it Easier Than an Enterprise-wide Real-time Location System (RTLS)” and was attended by a standing room only group of 30+.

We’re not sure if it was the salsa and chips, dessert table, cold water, hot coffee or George’s engaging presentation, but the AAMI show coordinator confirmed this was the most well-attended product showcase at the conference (yeah for us!). If you missed it, you can view George’s presentation here.

Awarepoint product showcase AAMI 2010.06 - George Sun

View more presentations from Awarepoint Corporation.

Our Hot Giveaway winner of Starbucks for a year was Teong Chai, Biomed Project Manager II at Harris County Hospital District. Congratulations! Teong has confirmed he received his gift cards this morning, so if you work with him, let him pay for coffee!

Thanks to everyone who visited Awarepoint and Skytron at AAMI 2010. It proved to be a successful event for us and we look forward to participating again next year!

University of Mississippi Medical Center Implements RTLS

Big RTLS Plans at University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) reports John Farrell at the Health Watch Mobility Blog! 

University of Mississippi Medical Center has implemented Skytron, powered by Awarepoint, for their Real-Time Location System - Asset Tracking Solution.

Our partner, Skytron, a division of the KMW Group, Inc., recently announced that University of Mississippi Medical Center has selected the company's Real-time Location (RTLS) solution, powered by Awarepoint, to automatically track and manage over 6,000 hospital assets throughout their 756 beds and 1.9 million square foot facility. You can read the full press release here.

University of Mississippi Medical Center is the state's only academic health science center and encompasses six health science schools: medicine, nursing, dentistry, health related professions, graduate studies and pharmacy covering 164 acres in the heart of Jackson, MS. The RTLS deployment comprises nearly 2 million square feet, creating for this facility (if you remember from our previous post) an entreprise-wide Marauder's Map.

According to Ed Smith, Executive Director of Supply Chain Management at UMMC, "optimizing the utilization of infusion pumps and other mobile assets such as telemetry, wheelchairs and other mobile assets were critical goals for the UMMC healthcare system. RTLS asset tracking and management provides us a better way to deliver care, locate our assets and use them more efficiently." Well said – these are absolutely the primary value drivers of an RTLS system for asset management – better care delivery, staff productivity and budget efficiency as it relates to usage of mobile medical equipment throughout the hospital.

In talking with hospitals across the country, we find these same challenges everywhere. It is exciting to offer a rapid-impact solution like RTLS where we can see first-hand the hard-dollar effects, as well as hear the “soft benefits” of staff satisfaction and quality of care so quickly.

We are so pleased to welcome UMMC as part of the growing family of Skytron / Awarepoint hospital customers and would love to hear your stories about similar mobile asset management challenges at your facility. Perhaps RTLS is right for you?

Awarepoint Issued 13th US Patent for RTLS Solutions

Awarepoint was recently issued US Patent #7701334 for a Wireless Tracking System And Method For Sterilizable Object, bringing Awarepoint's total patent portfolio to 13!

This latest patent claims a method for tracking a Sterilizable object, detecting a specific cleaning event, and notifying an operator of the cleaning event.

Awarepoint's patent history actually goes back to December 25, 2007 (Merry Christmas to us!) when our very first patent was issued for our wireless position location and tracking system which claims a method for real-time position location of an object within an indoor multiple floor facility … whew - say that 3 times fast!

In layman’s terms, our patents cover a variety of aspects of the art for an accurate position location and tracking system suitable for a wide range of facilities in variable environments.

These patents, along with the leadership, engineering, sales, marketing, technical support and client success teams behind them, have allowed Awarepoint to confidently claim a leadership position in deployment of real-time location systems for the U.S. hospital market.

So, congratulations to us … and keep reading for some game-changing product innovations on the horizon!

~ Valerie Fritz


Image courtesy of Aiello Design

Awarepoint: Where Employees Are Our Most Valuable Assets

Dear Awarepoint: Thanks for keeping our sodas free and not losing sight that our employees are our most valuable assets!

Can a single bottle of soda decimate your company? Absolutely.

If you need proof, read the article on VentureBeat's Entrepreneur Corner by Steve Blank titled Can a single bottle of soda decimate your company? Absolutely.

As Awarepoint scales (as of 5/21/10, we've reached the 80+ mark), we realize everyday that our most valuable assets are our employees. Free sodas, healthy (and not so healthy snacks), pizza delivered to late working engineers – we continue to provide these things.

But strong and sensitive leadership also makes the company remarkable, and that of course is not a little thing. It does, however, assure that little things are properly managed. Great companies do this well – and Awarepoint is certainly great!

Interesting "food" for thought, huh?