The Awarepoint Big RTLS Music Video Contest – Get Your Groove On!
Deadline Extended to March 31, 2011
You might recall we recently announced the Big RTLS Music Video Contest where Awarepoint invites you to sing (and dance) the blues about missing equipment … but not just in vain… we are going to give away prizes too!
We’ve extended our submission deadline to March 31, 2011, as we expect to meet and greet a lot of you at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2011 Conference and Exhibition taking place February 20-24, 2011 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando early next year.
We were inspired by you, hospital staffers across the country, after discovering dozens of fantastic hospital music video spots online. Since then, every Friday, we've been posting to the Awarepoint Facebook page links to other videos we consider inspiring, educational, and/or just plain fun and thought we’d wrap them up here to get your creative juices flowing:
1. First, check out the Laryngospasms singing “Waking Up is Hard To Do”. These are the guys who recorded the Awarepoint Song – “Now We Find More” for which we’re inviting you to create your own video!
2. How about these rapping nurses in a Boston hospital who’ve created a hilarious hand-washing video?
3. There's the really cool video from Swedish Medical Center which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. As staff posed for a group photo, a flash mob broke out to Abba's Dancing Queen. It's called Flash Mob, Swedish Medical Center.
4. Oh, how 'bout I want a new drug from Scripps Mercy Hospital. It includes bloopers at the end.
5. Everyone has one of these from time to time: Bad Day this time from Scripps Mercy Hospital Emergency Department staff as they rock to Daniel Powter's 'Bad Day'!
6. What about the Pink Glove Dance performed by Martin Memorial Health Systems?
So, are you inspired for Now We Find More? Can you feel your toes tapping to the tune of the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction?
CLICK ON THE I WANNA WIN button, which will take you to our special web page where you can get a copy of the lyrics, a copy of the MP3 song, details on the fabulous prizes and the rules to begin your journey into the music video makin’ industry!
Do you know where your Wound V.A.C.®s are? An enterprise-wide real-time location solution can tell you!
One of my favorite things about working at Awarepoint and in the RTLS market segment is hearing the real, tangible ways these solutions are helping hospitals every day. Every single success story may not individually represent an enormous financial gain, but each of these successes is valuable and contributes to cost efficient, quality health care every day.
Here’s a text book success story for wound V.A.C.® rentals at University of Mississippi Medical Center. This is an excerpt from an email from Tracy Alford, Director-Patient Equipment at University of Mississippi Medical Center to her Executive Director of Supply Chain.
RTLS Tracking Wound V.A.C. Machine - Situation:
“A patient on 2 South in Room 253 had a rented KCI Wound VAC machine that was discontinued yesterday morning. It is unclear as to whom actually removed the VAC machine from the patient. The nurse today did not have this patient yesterday and the patient had two different dayshift Nurses yesterday (both off work today). The patient’s chart does not have any documentation of the VAC removal. Since the VAC was tagged by our Awarepoint tracking system, I was able to pull a detailed “asset history location report” of the VAC machine.”
“Around 11:30 am the VAC machine was placed in the Biohazard Room (WC-272-OA) on 2 South instead in the Soiled Utility Room as it should. The VAC remained in this room until around 3:05 pm yesterday, was then taken down to the basement and stayed there in a large Biohazard container on the loading dock around 12:30 am.
A staff member received an alert via the Awarepoint system that the VAC had entered the basement area and placed a call to me for assistance. I was able to pull a report showing a map and detailed information confirming Room WC-272-OA was a Biohazard Room. I instructed staff to speak with the Nursing staff on 2 South concerning this machine. The RN that currently had the patient confirmed the machine “might have been placed in a Biohazard bag”. Staff was dispatched to the Biohazard room in the basement to search for the machine.
RTLS Tracking Wound V.A.C. Machine - Result:
There was a removal truck parked at the loading dock along with a representative of the company ready to remove the numerous Biohazard containers for the entire campus. With information from the Awarepoint system, staff located the Wound V.A.C. machine before it was removed from the site. In speaking with the delivery/removal tech from the Biohazard company, I learned that once the containers are removed from the site, they are sent to a holding area and then sent to a disposal site in Alabama. He said it would be next to impossible to locate the machine once the containers left the site.
RTLS Tracking Wound V.A.C. Machine - Summary:
If this machine would have not been located, the hospital would have received an invoice from KCI in the amount of $24,250.00. We might not have ever known where the machine was if it had not been tagged by the Awarepoint system.
Thank you, Tracy, for taking the time to share this success story with Awarepoint and readers of the AwarepointBlog!
We see stories like this every day, and welcome the opportunity to share them with other hospitals in documenting the value of RTLS. Without the enterprise awareness RTLS provides, you’d actually never know your Wound V.A.C. was disposed of in a Biohazard container and certainly would never be provided the opportunity to proactively recover it.
Saving nearly $25,000 for one incident is impressive. As hospital managers, what situations can you recall when a piece of expensive equipment was just gone? Did you find out only during annual inventory reconciliation? Did the problem surface when you received a bill for a rental piece of equipment that wasn’t returned? Was patient care delayed because you needed a piece of equipment that wasn’t where it was supposed to be? We’d love to hear from you.
The Facts for Fed Up with The Fever. RTLS and Temperature Monitoring Mania on HISTALK Blog
One of the blogs we follow is HISTALK which runs a weekly “Readers Write” blog series. The September 15 post caught my eye. In it, a reader named Fed Up with the Fever wrote an article about RTLS and Temperature Monitoring Mania.
His (or her) main contentions in this article were that temperature monitoring has nothing to do with location, and that too many hospitals fall prey to the belief that environmental monitoring is a function of RTLS, so if the vendor can do that well, surely they can locate assets and automate patient flow. You can read the original 9/15/10 Readers Write post by clicking this link.
As you might imagine, I disagree with these contentions and addressed the facts about RTLS and Temperature Monitoring in a comment left on the 9/15/10 Readers Write HISTALK post [which was posted to the site on September 16]. I thought I’d share my response with you here.
[Note: as relevant, I've added links to additional resources as well as emphasis.]
Response to RTLS and Temperature Monitoring Mania; By Fed Up with the Fever from Valerie @Awarepoint.
First, you’ll notice I choose not to respond anonymously, as I do want it clear I am representing an RTLS vendor, and don’t want my comments to be viewed as having a hidden agenda or as antagonistic.
Fed Up with the Fever hit a couple of interesting points here, most relevant, is that the acronym RTLS (Real-time Locating Systems) has become somewhat of a misnomer. These “RTLS” systems have moved well beyond locating to provide both location and condition sensing data for a variety of hospital applications. Our particular solution is described as real-time awareness, others refer to location and condition sensing networks, and still others are starting to use the real-time enterprise to describe this emerging market segment.
To answer the questions raised succinctly – Fed Up with the Fever is not exactly correct. Although there is no “locating” required for refrigerator monitoring in hospitals, as these assets are stationary, there are applications, in food service, blood and tissue transport, etc., where temperature sensitive assets are in fact mobile. Because locating systems provide an enterprise communication network that can receive data from a variety of inputs (including temperature and other environmental monitoring tags), leveraging the “RTLS” infrastructure for data communication is a cost effective way for hospitals to obtain automated temperature monitoring throughout their enterprise. Either way, for mobile or stationary assets, hospitals are choosing to leverage this communication network by adding temperature monitoring tags and software applications offered by RTLS vendors that include the real-time alerts and reports that healthcare needs related to temperatures.
To clarify another point made – all RTLS systems are NOT, in fact, Wi-Fi based. There are myriad other options for real-time locating infrastructure. We utilize a ZigBee mesh network, which is completely independent of the Wi-Fi network, yet coexists without interference concerns. There are numerous other non-Wi-Fi technologies as well.
Fed Up with the Fever further opines that “Unfortunately, too many hospitals fall prey to the belief that environmental monitoring is a function of RTLS, so if the vendor can do that well, surely they can locate assets and automate patient flow, right?” Actually, no, it usually works the other way – hospitals select RTLS to provide asset management and patient flow solutions enterprise wide. Once this infrastructure is in place, asset tag options are easily leveraged to provide location, movement and condition data to a variety of hospital applications, including applications like temperature and other environmental monitoring.
The last point I would make is that there is even more advanced functionality on the horizon that do incorporate locating as part of temperature monitoring, in the area of auto recording and documenting who and when staff respond to out-of-range situations. In this case, tag-to-tag communication can be used to automate a log entry that an out-of-range situation was corrected, which is a key component to Joint Commission regulatory compliance. Non location-based systems will continue to rely on manual documentation of corrective action response.
I hope that clears up some of the confusion. Perhaps Fed Up with the Fever should look into opportunities to partner with RTLS vendors as opposed to questioning their existence in the temperature and other environmental-monitoring space.
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Most hospitals today choose to leverage their RTLS network for temperature monitoring. It seems a natural extension of an enterprise network designed to monitor location, condition and status of assets.
I would love to hear how hospitals feel about the growing number of RTLS providers who also offer temperature and other environmental condition monitoring as part of their solutions. Leave a comment here or add to the conversation on HISTALK.
Becker’s Hospital Review Survey Identifies Greatest Time Wasters for Nurses: 3 of the Top 5 Are Areas Where a Real-time Location System (RTLS) Can Help
Not surprisingly, clinical documentation was rated as #1 with 55% of nurses reporting that documentation creates inefficient processes. But maybe surprising to some, 3 of the top 5 time-wasters are areas where a real-time location system (RTLS) can help:
#2 - Locating Supplies and Equipment | Nearly 20% of nurses report that locating supplies and equipment means having less time to spend with patients.
#3 – Patient Flow | 15% of nurses report that waiting for exam or treatment rooms to open, locating patients who have been mistakenly assigned to other units, and locating a bed for a patient when the unit has no available space waste valuable time
#5 – Redundant Communication with Families | 11% report that communicating to multiple family members about updates on a patient’s condition or discharge information is a time challenge, and that several different nurses typically have to pass along the same information.
A Real-time Locating System (RTLS) provides valuable insight into the location, status and movement of equipment and patients through the hospital enterprise. In addition to locating equipment and supplies, this location information can be used to automate patient flow and communication processes within hospitals.
As I wrote in this blog back in May, RTLS can have a significant impact on nurses’ time spent on patient care. With RTLS, nurses can use any hospital computer or mobile device to locate a particular piece of equipment or person. Furthermore, with Awarepoint RTLS software, the interface is intuitive, offering simple, one-click searching capability. With the selection made, a map appears pinpointing the location or status of the asset or person.
Patient flow challenges also impact nurses’ time. With RTLS, patient tracking and transport applications can provide data which have significant effect on improving patient flow by providing valuable insight into locating patients and room availability.
And, with new mobile applications being developed for RTLS systems in conjunction with patient tracking, nurses can electronically message multiple family members with updates about the status of their loved ones … all from a single messaging platform. Messaging such as: patient being prepared for surgery, patient in surgery, patient in recovery, patient moved to inpatient room, etc. can be triggered based on the tracked location of the patient in the process.
RTLS solutions today have moved well beyond just locating equipment (although as you can see from the above, this is still a powerful value driver for these systems).
Do you think nurses in your hospital would agree with the top 5 time wasters? It might be time to ask and consider how RTLS can improve direct patient care time, impact patient flow and address communication challenges. That's in addition to analyzing the hard dollar savings realized by RTLS asset management operational efficiency which includes reductions in lost equipment, lowering equipment rental costs and increasing equipment utilization...
Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center deployed an enterprise-wide RTLS system from Skytron, powered by Awarepoint. The deployment covers almost 1 million square feet, with nearly 5,000 medical equipment assets under management. Allyn is responsible for implementing worker safety and managing the facility’s safety program. As part of her duties, management of medical equipment that falls within the Joint CommissionEnvironment of Care guidelines are within her purview. Making sure equipment is available and working properly is part of the program’s goals. In order to achieve this, her department must, of course, be able to actually find it.
I sat down with Allyn to get her perspective on the value of RTLS at her facility. Here’s a preview of what she’ll be presenting at RFID in Healthcare East:
What were the unique challenges that led Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center to an RTLS system?
“Not uncommon in hospitals, our biggest challenge was the perception that we didn’t have enough IV pumps. Even after several cycles of buying more, the perception continued, primarily in the Emergency Department. Nurses continued to feel they didn’t have a pump when they needed one. We knew we had enough inventory, but simply couldn’t find it.”
You mentioned several cycles of buying more IV pumps, but staff still felt they couldn’t find a pump when they needed one. Have your purchase requests changed since RTLS?
“It’s interesting to recall how many times we purchased IV pumps (a couple of rounds) before RTLS, but still had trouble accounting for them all. When we started tagging equipment, there was no way in the world we thought we would find everything we thought we had. We actually found all 600+ and the good news is that we now know for certain we have enough pumps for the volume of business we do.”
In addition to knowing the location of your IV pump inventory, have you seen other tangible improvements to the perception of equipment availability now that RTLS is implemented?
“Actually, yes. Now, with RTLS, we make sure IV pumps are where they need to be – and this has actually now evolved beyond pumps to beds and other key equipment pieces. Within the first month of RTLS implementation, we reduced complaints from nursing that “we don’t have a pump” to zero! And, people seem to be sharing equipment now – no drama around it. From daily complaints/daily concerns to nothing! This helps nursing leadership, saves time, and shows our nurses’ confidence in the system.”
Helping overworked staff is typically a value driver for RTLS. Have you been able to show results in how the system has improved the work environment and efficiency for staff?
“Yes, using the reports data to show how many equipment searches are conducted allows us to calculate time savings for clinicians and materials management teams. We’ve also seen an improvement in our preventive maintenance (PM) completion rates. Although our PM completion rates were high before RTLS, there was a % of equipment maintenance dates missed simply because we couldn’t find the equipment. As Director of Safety, I continually remind us how important this task is in making OLOL a safer place. Since RTLS was implemented, we’re down to 3.2% of PMs found incomplete. This represents an improvement from 93% - 97% completion. We continue to work on increasing this sustained trend in being able to find stuff we need to do PM on, as we know that with each passing period beyond the scheduled maintenance date, the risk of malfunction goes up.”
Thanks Allyn! We’re really looking forwarding to your upcoming presentation at RFID in Healthcare East.
Join us at RFID in Healthcare East to hear directly from Allyn when she’ll address these RTLS value drivers as well as the subjects below and be available to take your direct questions:
• Why did you choose Skytron, powered by Awarepoint, as opposed to another technology?
• How did you determine primary end user goals by department?
• What departments are the biggest users of the system?
• How has the staff responded to this system?
• Do you have plans to change how you are using the system or to expand in the future?
Integrity in Marketing - Deux: Evaluating RTLS Vendor Claims. Can you believe everything you read?
Continuing with the theme of Integrity in RTLS Marketing, I'm curious in Part Deux how healthcare managers, evaluating RTLS vendors, interpret vendor claims -- something we take very seriously at Awarepoint.
Case in point: I recently came across a press release from a healthcare RTLS vendor with a very engaging headline announcing more than 200 healthcare RTLS deals in 2010. Sounds like a fantastic first half of 2010 … but is it? Intrigued as usual by success in the RTLS market segment, I read on to discover that the “story” they tell outlines that in the first half of 2010, (vendor) received more than 200 orders for its healthcare solutions. Sounds impressive on the surface, but after reading the release, I’m left to wonder what constitutes an “order”, since the definition is never detailed.
When you read that headline, what do you assume? From my perspective, it seems a little misleading …
I love this article from Valley of the Geeks.com titled Marketing Spin about marketing in the technology industry, marketing spin and how the story about market share can be manipulated. It’s pretty funny, in a tongue in cheek kind-of-way, and describes how marketing in the technology industry first began:
“Marketing in the technology industry first began in 1943 with IBM Chairman Thomas J. Watson Sr's famous market prediction: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." The marketing department immediately issued a press release announcing IBM as the worldwide leader in computers implying that they had already sold two units giving them forty percent market share. Unfortunately, sales remained relatively flat since IBM's Marketing team also pre-announced OS/2 by forty-two years.
Nonetheless, IBM's marketing team managed to prove that there was a huge untapped need in the market place. Unfortunately, the need was for market research. Companies like Gartner Group, Yankee Group and others fell about themselves selling IBM's marketing team research reports showing that there was a market for six or even seven computers and offering to write up fancy reports segmenting the market.”
Awarepoint receives hospital client “orders” every day – for new asset tags, replacement tags, temperature monitoring tags, network expansions to outlier buildings, etc. However, we believe the most relevant metric for hospital managers in evaluating vendors is referenceable customers with documented outcomes. Awarepoint has documented proven success in the healthcare RTLS market segment and recently created a report entitled: Awarepoint Real‐time Location System Value Metrics in Healthcare. This report outlines specific customer examples of healthcare results and reports actual savings realized.
If you’re intrigued and would like a copy, simply email us at AwarepointBlog@gmail.com and I’ll connect you with the Regional Vice President in your area who will be more than happy to review our documented results and return on investment drivers for RTLS in healthcare. These documented results represent our Phase 1 value drivers in Tracking and and locating assets, Rental equipment savings, Utilization improvements, Shrinkage reduction, and Temperature monitoring (T.R.U.S.T) in hospitals.
So really, I’d love to hear what matters to you as a buyer of healthcare technology?
As a healthcare manager evaluating RTLS vendors, what research and metrics are important to you when reviewing vendors in a market segment? How do you select whom you’re going to invite to the table when you are assessing a new technology for your hospital?
What really matters to you and how do you sift through the marketing spin to validate the real story?
I would love to hear from you. Perhaps I'm too much of a realist (possibly not a great trait for the role of a marketer), but I'm confident authentic stories and real results will speak for themselves, without the idealistic "spin".
All of us at Awarepoint are so proud of our continued high level of employee engagement and satisfaction.
So what exactly does employee engagement mean and why does it matter? There are literally thousands of articles discussing the value of employee engagement. A couple of my favorites do a great job at explaining why happy employees matter:
According to The Gallup Organization, “The world's top-performing organizations understand that employee engagement is a force that drives performance outcomes. In the best organizations, engagement is more than a human resources initiative -- it is a strategic foundation for the way they do business.
Research by Gallup and others shows that engaged employees are more productive. They are more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave. The best-performing companies know that an employee engagement improvement strategy linked to the achievement of corporate goals will help them win in the marketplace."
And, from Chief Executive Magazine (February 09 issue): Engaged employees dramatically improve the bottom line. "The numbers on employee engagement are out, and they’re compelling. Several leading research firms reporting on the quantifiable value of increased employee engagement concluded that engaged employees dramatically improve a company’s bottom-line performance.
On the flip side, these studies also prove that disengaged employees do more damage than one would think. One of the most powerful tools for engaging employees is strategic recognition. These programs engage a workforce by rewarding them – frequently and with meaningful awards – for behaviors, actions and attitudes that reflect an organization’s core goals and values."
For those not familiar with the evaluation process, Modern Healthcare assessed the competitiveness of our employee benefits policies and practices and reviewed the diversity of our staff demographics. As important, the employee engagement and satisfaction survey asked approximately 70 questions to appraise how satisfied we are as employees. Specific focus was placed on:
• Whether there is an overall confidence in Awarepoint’s leadership and planning
• Whether corporate communication is detailed and frequent enough
• Whether we enjoy the work we do
• How we feel about our physical working conditions
• If we feel respected by our immediate managers
• Whether we feel our pay and benefits are fair for the work we perform
As Awarepoint grows and scales, we continue to recognize that our employees are our most valuable assets! You might remember the quick blog post I wrote a couple months ago: Awarepoint: Where Employees Are Our Most Valuable Assets. Although I’m confident each one of our employees would cite certain areas we feel can be improved, collectively we continue to do many of the right things and truly know how fortunate we are to work for Awarepoint!
Viewpoint: Successful Deployment of RTLS in Healthcare, presented by Sam Itani, Vice President of San Joaquin Community Hospital.
Welcome to the Awarepoint Blog Series: Viewpoint. In this series of blog posts, we’ll highlight client RTLS success stories.
Our first post outlines Successful Deployment of RTLS in Healthcare and is presented by Sam Itani, Vice President of San Joaquin Community Hospital. Sam’s educational focus is to help other hospitals considering RTLS understand the importance of a cooperative vendor partnership.
I’ll share some quick highlights here, but I do encourage you to watch the full presentation – the 15 minutes you spend here can avoid you big headaches and potentially help you save $100,000s with RTLS at your facility.
About San Joaquin Community Hospital:
• 255 bed hospital located in central California. The hospital is approximately 330,000 square feet.
• There are currently 1,475 total assets tagged in 36 primary equipment categories.
Main Value Drivers for RTLS
• San Joaquin Community Hospital was looking for tools to impact staff efficiency and staff satisfaction. During daily bed meetings, staff frustration was high – “we can’t find the bed, we can’t find the pump” kept coming up over and over again. The biomedical team had their own concerns – specifically, the need to locate devices for preventive maintenance or items subject to a product recall.
The RTLS Solution Selection Criteria
• The primary selection criteria was that the RTLS system be easy to install (no cable pulls, no disruption to patient care); available on a lease model (no capital investment up front); offered a fully managed service solution, and be easy to use.
• San Joaquin Community Hospital selected Skytron Asset Manager, powered by Awarepoint, as it met all of their objectives. Particularly, the flexible business model was key – no upfront capital – lease on a month to month basis.
Key Lessons Learned
• For asset management, RTLS must be installed enterprise-wide. San Joaquin encourages hospital managers to do a comprehensive study of your enterprise footprint – including outlier buildings.
• Room level accuracy is key and Sam Itani went as far as to personally verify the system’s location accuracy before he would approve payment to his vendor!
• Training is imperative – even though it's easy to use, staff awareness is key.
• To get maximum value, you must have an ongoing cooperative partnership with your vendor. San Joaquin, Skytron and Awarepoint participate in monthly steering committee meetings to address any challenges, understand new use cases, and ensure that hospital managers and front line staff continue to get value from their RTLS investment
Where To Look for the ROI from RTLS?
San Joaquin Community Hospital is experiencing tangible benefits from its deployment of RTLS in several key areas:
Savings on equipment losses, which helped them pay for the system
Increased staff efficiency (time saved looking for equipment)
Managing equipment par levels, including keeping an adequate supply of Pumps on each floor at all times and alerting when equipment in dirty utility rooms piles up
Business intelligence to drive capital purchase decisions. If you use what you have, you need less of it!
Savings on rentals - knowing what’s rented, when it’s supposed to be returned and alerting based on these parameters
Temperature monitoring tags - used in medication refrigerators - eliminate daily manually logging.
Probably San Joaquin Community Hospital’s biggest lesson is that in order for your RTLS deployment to return value, there will be process change!
Ongoing collaboration between a key executive sponsor at the hospital and a vendor with a vested interest in your success makes for a true cooperative partner relationship. It will ensure that RTLS not only helps you find your assets today, but provides valuable business intelligence to allow you to make intelligent equipment purchase decisions going forward.
I welcome your reactions to this Viewpoint: Successful Deployment of RTLS in Healthcare presented by Sam Itani, vice president, San Joaquin Community Hospital.
We invite you to join us in this conversation as we explore how RTLS is evolving beyond "location" to Real Time Awareness Solutions that take into consideration all of the factors that matter to hospital administrators and patients alike.
